Pressure is rising against premiere league brands who are advertising, directly or indirectly, with illegal P2P file sharing networks on the grounds that it somewhat belittles the music industry's battle against illegal file sharing when music fans see adverts for NatWest, Vodafone, O2, First Direct, NTL and Renault on the P2P networks they are not meant to be using.
In a special report on the issue, the BBC quote Paul Myers of Wippit - who run a legal P2P network - who says: "It is time advertisers stopped providing oxygen for companies that support illegal downloading". In a recent open letter to the BPI he pointed out: "You may be surprised to know that current advertisers on the most popular peer to peer service eDonkey who now steadfastly support copyright theft with real cash money include Nat West, Vodafone, O2, First Direct, NTL, and Renault".
The BPI themselves are also critical of those advertisers who support the P2P companies, saying in a statement: "Networks like eDonkey, Kazaa and Grokster facilitate illegal filesharing. The BPI strongly believes that any reputable company should look carefully at the support they are giving these networks through their advertising revenue. Illegal file-sharers steal millions of pounds worth of music through these services. We are sure that the companies advertising on them would not put up with theft on such a scale from their own businesses."
Most of the aforementioned brands distanced themselves from advertising with illegal P2P networks when approached by the BBC - opting for the "it's one of our advertising agents that does it - we don't know anything about it" line. But Mark Mulligan of research firm Jupiter Research reckons it is hard for some brands to ignore the reach and demographic of leading P2P networks: "This has been a problem for a long time, ever since the days of Napster. The reality is that the millions of downloaders represent a very attractive audience. Advertisers probably pay a lot less for putting ads here than on more respected sites and they are reaching the perfect target audience. If you put the legality issues aside, not to advertise here would mean missing out on a valuable audience".
You can read the full BBC report at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4000331.stm