Some lawyers have warned that companies advertising on these sites could face litigation. "Copyright on the Internet is a very fast moving legal area. Any copyright owner or connected company advertising on an illegal download site is badly advised and taking big legal risks." said Susan Singleton, solicitor with e-commerce lawyers Singletons, and editor of IT Law Today. Online advertising is the fastest growing marketing medium in history with expenditure on ads in the UK expected to reach £1bn this year.
Sky Digital is one service being advertised on these websites. The ads for the service were found on a site that offers 20 Century Fox's Transporter 2 movie for download. Through the MPAA, 20 Century Fox amongst others has been trying to shut down these sites and force P2P networks to implement features that limit their networks to authorised sharing. Both Napster and Apple were disappointed to hear their advertisements had reached these sites and explained how it may have happened before promising that the ads would be removed.
Source:
Guardian Unlimited