Thousands in revenues lost due to pirated content

Original content published on sites other than those it was intended for appears to have an audience 1.5 times larger than on its original destination site, according to a study by content monitoring firm, Attributor Corporation.

by Helen Leggatt

The average online publisher stands to lose over $150,000 in additional revenues from content being published on other sites and those publishers are benefiting from ad revenues generated around that content. Attributor calculated its figures based on the assumption that advertisers pay $1 for every 1,000 pages of unauthorized material.

Attributor tracked online content from over 100 publishers across a wide range of categories including entertainment, technology, travel, automotive, politics, sports and health. Of the categories studied, the automotive and travel categories had the biggest off-site audiences with 5 - 7 times larger audiences. Other categories fared as follows:

- Entertainment - nearly 4 times
- Sports, Technology - more than 2 times
- Advice, Environment, Health - nearly 2 times
- Politics - nearly 1.5 times

"The results of this study confirm what many publishers have always known - their original content is powering significant revenue on other sites," said Jim Brock, CEO of Attributor.

Tags: advertising, audience, off-site content, online content, pirated, publishers, revenue