Latest news with #Adalytics
New York Post
2 days ago
- Business
- New York Post
YouTube minting billions off pirated videos placed next to ads for Trump, GM and more, bombshell report reveals: ‘They're letting it happen'
YouTube places flagrantly pirated videos next to ads for politicians including President Trump, as well as corporate giants like JPMorgan, General Motors and Pizza Hut, according to a bombshell report – and insiders claim Google is turning a blind eye to the shenanigans as it rakes in billions in ad dollars. Last September, YouTube ran a Trump National Committee ad before what looked like a pirated version of the Tom Cruise blockbuster 'Top Gun: Maverick.' Last month, an ad for Procter & Gamble's Olay body wash ran alongside an apparently pirated Russian-language version of Netflix's 'Squid Game,' according to the report. Elsewhere, ads for Pizza Hut and General Motors ran alongside a pirated Spanish-language version of the 2025 movie 'Sinners,' according to screenshots included in a 300-page report compiled by Adalytics, a research firm that partners with Fortune 500 companies. 6 Adalytics compiled a 300-page report on YouTube's issues with pirated content. Adalytics The latter were later removed to a copyright request by Warner Bros, and the other two were eventually taken down over copyright claims. Nevertheless, YouTube scarcely ever gives refunds to brands after it removes videos that violate its own policies, media buyers and advertising executives told The Post. 'They're letting it happen,' said Erich Garcia, a longtime marketing executive. 'It's because they are financially benefiting from this. They are pocketing the money and continuing on.' Garcia said he raised the issue directly with YouTube in early 2023 after noticing bizarre trends while serving as head of paid media at 'I would see these really random YouTube channels, typically foreign language with very small viewership, all of a sudden — in the course of like 20 minutes — rack up thousands of dollars of spend,' Garcia said. These weren't isolated, one-off incidents. Garcia said as much as 50% of Quote's ad spending during a given period would show up in YouTube's reports marked 'Total: other' — indicating that the channels where the ads had run had been removed while failing to identify them. Eventually, Garcia gave a presentation to YouTube staffers, a copy of which was viewed by The Post, which showed that nearly $300,000 — or more than 40% — of Quote's spending, was unaccounted for in YouTube's reports. 6 Trump campaign ads ran along videos of college football games and Hollywood movies. Adalytics He said Google representatives later provided him with a $50,000 account credit, though they didn't admit it was because of the issues he'd flagged. Meanwhile, Adalytics captured video in which Trump campaign ads ran alongside multiple pirated broadcasts of college football games, including a matchup between the Colorado Buffaloes and the Colorado State Rams last fall. That video was later removed after the account was 'terminated,' according to YouTube. A YouTube spokesperson said the Trump campaign ads flagged in the Adalytics report ran on videos that were correctly identified by YouTube's 'Content ID,' a safety tool that scans for copyright-related infractions, and removed from the platform. The channels responsible for the violations were banned. 'When we become aware of channels that repeatedly upload content they don't own, we terminate the channel, and if ads were running on this content, we credit the advertiser,' a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. Content ID flagged more than 2.2 billion videos in 2024 alone, the company said. In more than 90% of cases, rightsholders opted to keep their content on YouTube in exchange for receiving ad revenue. 6 One of the examples spotted by Adalytics featured an ad for Olay body wash. Adalytics When possible, YouTube provides credits to advertisers whose ads ran on channels that violated its policies, the company said. The White House declined to comment. The Republican National Committee did not return a request for comment. Kamala Harris's campaign encountered similar issues, as did major corporate brands like NBCUniversal, US Bank, T-Mobile and many others, according to Adalytics. Advertisers have been up in arms about ads running against illicit YouTube videos for at least a decade. In 2015, ads for big corporate brands like Toyota and Anheuser-Busch ran alongside videos of ISIS beheadings. In 2017, Lyft pulled advertisers off YouTube after its commercials ran on a white supremacist group's channel. Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! That hasn't stopped YouTube from becoming a cash cow for parent company Google. The platform raked in a whopping $36.1 billion in revenue from digital ads in 2024 – including its first-ever $10 billion quarter in the last three months of the year. While YouTube sends placement reports about their ad campaigns, sources say the reports are vague and difficult to parse. Some campaigns can have thousands or even millions of entries logged in a spreadsheet, making performance analysis nearly impossible for smaller businesses. 'They have controls in place, but it appears that they don't work as well as they say they do,' said one ad executive who asked not to be named. 'It is a very complicated ecosystem that they've set up. And it can make it seem as though an advertiser, large or small, is buying in an open exchange where you can end up on channels or videos with unsafe, inflammatory, or foreign-owned content.' 6 Pizza Hut was another brand that fell victim to the issue. Adalytics The industry veterans said YouTube videos that get taken down show up in Google reports in a category titled 'total: other.' The reports give no details on when or why the videos were removed, leaving advertisers at a loss to explain how their money was spent. One media buyer said it was 'utterly impossible' to get a full understanding of how and where brand ads were running on YouTube. 'You can't know for certain what was what,' the buyer said. 'You can't get much transparency into things that were removed.' To vet YouTube's refund policy, a second media buyer performed a test in which ads were specifically marked to run in channels that the buyer knew had been running pirated videos. YouTube removed the videos, but didn't give a refund, according to a copy of a YouTube report viewed by The Post. 6 YouTube generated its first-ever $10 billion quarter for ad sales last fiscal year. NurPhoto via Getty Images 'Why are they not giving a refund for that? If it was not good enough for their policies, but it's good enough for you to take the advertiser's money?' the second media buyer said. 'it seems like they're really focused on the monetization aspect and not so much on the success of campaigns for advertisers.' YouTube pushed back on assertions that its placement reports are too vague and said it encourages advertisers to contact their account managers if they have questions about receiving 'make good' credits. Earlier this year, a US federal judge ruled that Google operates two illegal monopolies related to digital advertising. The Justice Department is pushing for a breakup of the company to restore competition. 6 President Trump's campaign was one of many entities that had their ads run against videos that were taken down for violating YouTube's policies. AP Critics have argued that a lack of competition has allowed Google to skate by without meaningful product and safety improvements. For now, Garcia said advertisers have little choice but to eat their losses and continue working with YouTube due to its massive audience. 'It's like 'kiss the ring,'' Garcia said. 'Where are you gonna go? There is no competition to YouTube.'
The Star
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
YouTube pirates are cashing in on Hollywood's summer blockbusters
SAN FRANCISCO: After spending about US$100mil on Lilo & Stitch, a live-action remake of a 2002 animated film, Disney had plenty to celebrate. The film pulled in US$361mil (RM1.53bil) worldwide on its opening weekend in May and bested Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning at the box office. But the company also had cause to be concerned. In the days after the Disney film's opening, a pirated version of Lilo & Stitch proved to be a hit on YouTube, where more than 200,000 people viewed it, potentially costing Disney millions of dollars in additional sales, according to research from Adalytics, a firm that analyses advertising campaigns for brands. The findings of the research shed new light on the copyright issues that once threatened to upend YouTube's business. They also show how advertisers have unwittingly supported illicit content on YouTube, and they provide rare data about piracy on the platform. YouTube has long tried to tamp down piracy, but users who upload stolen films and television shows have employed new tactics to evade the platform's detection tools, the research showed, including cropping films and manipulating footage. YouTube then recommended the uploaded videos to users on its homepage, promoting pirated streaming of box office releases like Lilo & Stitch, or movies exclusively available on streaming platforms, like Captain America: Brave New World, according to screen recordings compiled by Adalytics and an analysis by The New York Times. YouTube, which is owned by Google, may also have generated revenue from some stolen videos, though it's unclear how much money it may have made. The company has a program known as Content ID to identify videos protected by copyright. It allows copyright holders to block the videos, share in advertising sales of the videos or receive data about who views the videos. Over the years, YouTube has paid billions of dollars to rights holders. YouTube reported flagging 2.2 billion videos last year and said rights holders permitted about 90% of those videos to stay on the platform. Jack Malon, a spokesperson for YouTube, said the company does not analyze the less than 10% of videos it removes at the request of copyright holders and does not track how many of those videos may be recently released, full-length movies. The channels that uploaded the videos of Lilo & Stitch and Captain America: Brave New World were terminated for violating YouTube's policies on spam, Malon said. He declined to say whether the company had profited from commercials shown in copyrighted videos that evaded detection by Content ID or racked up views before rights holders asked that they be taken down. At YouTube's request, Adalytics and the Times provided 200 videos for YouTube to review, most of them full-length films. YouTube analysed the videos but declined to provide insight into what percentage of the films their rights holders had permitted to stay up or had required to be removed. 'To frame these videos as 'illicit' without first reviewing the specific choices made by each rights holder misunderstands how the media landscape on YouTube works today,' Malon said. While 'mistakes do occur' on YouTube, he said, he dismissed the Adalytics report as an effort to get companies to sign up for the firm's services. Holders of copyrights for the videos, including all the major film studios, did not respond when asked for comment by the Times. The founder of Adalytics, Krzysztof Franaszek, who conducted the research, said he had observed 9,000 examples of possible copyright violations, 'including full-length movies that were in theatrical release, Netflix exclusives such as Extraction 2, TV shows such as Family Guy and live NCAA college football games.' The videos collectively had more than 250 million views. More than 100 of these uploads were also reviewed by the Times. Movies from every major film studio were found on YouTube in unofficial streams uploaded from last July to May, Adalytics found. When briefed on the research findings, Larissa Knapp, the chief content protection officer of the Motion Picture Association, a trade group for movie studios, said she found them concerning. At one point, the anti-piracy work between the studios and YouTube 'did work', Knapp said. 'But now it seems like some of the stuff may have gone off the rails if illegal content is being placed with ads.' The research recalled a time in YouTube's history when Hollywood accused the platform of profiting from its stolen content. In 2007, Viacom sued YouTube, claiming it engaged in 'brazen' copyright infringement by allowing uploads of the media company's material without its permission. In 2012, YouTube won the suit by arguing it was shielded from liability by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which exempted YouTube from liability for hosting copyrighted work. The law shifted the burden for protecting a copyright from the platform and video creators to rights holders, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University. Without the rule, he said, 'the Internet would not be able to exist in its existing format.' YouTube has tried to work with film studios, television networks and streaming services to combat piracy. Google, YouTube's parent company, developed its Content ID technology to recognise copyrighted videos, and YouTube became more aggressive at policing its platform for piracy. Copyright holders gained the right to either have the content removed or collect a share of the advertising revenue the videos generated. The box office in the United States and Canada routinely loses US$1bil (RM4.25bil) each year to piracy, which is roughly 15% of its annual haul, according to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a trade group of 50 entertainment companies that tries to reduce piracy. Franaszek began the research after his advertising clients noticed that as much as 60% of their ad spending on YouTube went to videos or channels that were labelled 'no longer available'. After digging deeper, he found that his clients had paid to support content that YouTube later removed because it violated company policies against nudity, violence or hate speech, or because of other offenses. When videos are removed from the platform, YouTube scrubs advertisers' records so that they can no longer see the name of the video. Advertisers have to go to the link for the removed video to see if it was removed for a copyright violation, Franaszek said. He added that the platform did not fully reimburse the advertisers for the cost of commercials in those videos. Erich Garcia, a senior vice president at which lets consumers compare insurance offerings, said his company's ads routinely ran with videos that had disappeared, limiting his insight into the effectiveness of his promotions. Malon said YouTube advertisers could get more insight into those videos by asking their account representatives for more information. Representatives can provide advertising credits. Ads from Disney, Hulu, HBO Max, Focus Features and dozens of other companies from various industries were found alongside unauthorised film and television uploads, Adalytics said. Pirates deployed a range of deceptive tactics to evade YouTube's anti-piracy algorithms. Some uploaded and voluntarily removed copyrighted videos on the same day, racking up viewers before being caught. Other pirates mirrored the videos to reverse the images, or cropped the frames in an effort to trick the Content ID system. Still others placed clips of regular people at the end of a Hollywood blockbuster video to further cover their tracks, Adalytics and the Times found. Franaszek said Adalytics clients who paid for advertising in videos that were removed over copyright issues had a simple request: 'to have visibility into what content their YouTube ad dollars are funding, and where their ads appear.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Indian Express
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
YouTube pirates are cashing in on Hollywood's summer blockbusters
After spending about $100 million on 'Lilo & Stitch,' a live-action remake of a 2002 animated film, Disney had plenty to celebrate. The film pulled in $361 million worldwide on its opening weekend in May and bested 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' at the box office. But the company also had cause to be concerned. In the days after the Disney film's opening, a pirated version of 'Lilo & Stitch' proved to be a hit on YouTube, where more than 200,000 people viewed it, potentially costing Disney millions of dollars in additional sales, according to research from Adalytics, a firm that analyzes advertising campaigns for brands. The findings of the research shed new light on the copyright issues that once threatened to upend YouTube's business. They also show how advertisers have unwittingly supported illicit content on YouTube, and they provide rare data about piracy on the platform. YouTube has long tried to tamp down piracy, but users who upload stolen films and television shows have employed new tactics to evade the platform's detection tools, the research showed, including cropping films and manipulating footage. YouTube then recommended the uploaded videos to users on its homepage, promoting pirated streaming of box office releases like 'Lilo & Stitch,' or movies exclusively available on streaming platforms, like 'Captain America: Brave New World,' according to screen recordings compiled by Adalytics and an analysis by The New York Times. YouTube, which is owned by Google, may also have generated revenue from some stolen videos, though it's unclear how much money it may have made. The company has a program known as Content ID to identify videos protected by copyright. It allows copyright holders to block the videos, share in advertising sales of the videos or receive data about who views the videos. Over the years, YouTube has paid billions of dollars to rights holders. YouTube reported flagging 2.2 billion videos last year and said rights holders permitted about 90% of those videos to stay on the platform. Jack Malon, a spokesperson for YouTube, said the company does not analyze the less than 10% of videos it removes at the request of copyright holders and does not track how many of those videos may be recently released, full-length movies. The channels that uploaded the videos of 'Lilo & Stitch' and 'Captain America: Brave New World' were terminated for violating YouTube's policies on spam, Malon said. He declined to say whether the company had profited from commercials shown in copyrighted videos that evaded detection by Content ID or racked up views before rights holders asked that they be taken down. At YouTube's request, Adalytics and the Times provided 200 videos for YouTube to review, most of them full-length films. YouTube analyzed the videos but declined to provide insight into what percentage of the films their rights holders had permitted to stay up or had required to be removed. 'To frame these videos as 'illicit' without first reviewing the specific choices made by each rights holder misunderstands how the media landscape on YouTube works today,' Malon said. While 'mistakes do occur' on YouTube, he said, he dismissed the Adalytics report as an effort to get companies to sign up for the firm's services. Holders of copyrights for the videos, including all the major film studios, did not respond when asked for comment by the Times. The founder of Adalytics, Krzysztof Franaszek, who conducted the research, said he had observed 9,000 examples of possible copyright violations, 'including full-length movies that were in theatrical release, Netflix exclusives such as 'Extraction 2,' TV shows such as 'Family Guy' and live NCAA college football games.' The videos collectively had more than 250 million views. More than 100 of these uploads were also reviewed by the Times. Movies from every major film studio were found on YouTube in unofficial streams uploaded from last July to May, Adalytics found. When briefed on the research findings, Larissa Knapp, the chief content protection officer of the Motion Picture Association, a trade group for movie studios, said she found them concerning. At one point, the anti-piracy work between the studios and YouTube 'did work,' Knapp said. 'But now it seems like some of the stuff may have gone off the rails if illegal content is being placed with ads.' The research recalled a time in YouTube's history when Hollywood accused the platform of profiting from its stolen content. In 2007, Viacom sued YouTube, claiming it engaged in 'brazen' copyright infringement by allowing uploads of the media company's material without its permission. In 2012, YouTube won the suit by arguing it was shielded from liability by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which exempted YouTube from liability for hosting copyrighted work. The law shifted the burden for protecting a copyright from the platform and video creators to rights holders, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University. Without the rule, he said, 'the internet would not be able to exist in its existing format.' YouTube has tried to work with film studios, television networks and streaming services to combat piracy. Google, YouTube's parent company, developed its Content ID technology to recognize copyrighted videos, and YouTube became more aggressive at policing its platform for piracy. Copyright holders gained the right to either have the content removed or collect a share of the advertising revenue the videos generated. The box office in the United States and Canada routinely loses $1 billion each year to piracy, which is roughly 15% of its annual haul, according to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a trade group of 50 entertainment companies that tries to reduce piracy. Franaszek began the research after his advertising clients noticed that as much as 60% of their ad spending on YouTube went to videos or channels that were labeled 'no longer available.' After digging deeper, he found that his clients had paid to support content that YouTube later removed because it violated company policies against nudity, violence or hate speech, or because of other offenses. When videos are removed from the platform, YouTube scrubs advertisers' records so that they can no longer see the name of the video. Advertisers have to go to the link for the removed video to see if it was removed for a copyright violation, Franaszek said. He added that the platform did not fully reimburse the advertisers for the cost of commercials in those videos. Erich Garcia, a senior vice president at which lets consumers compare insurance offerings, said his company's ads routinely ran with videos that had disappeared, limiting his insight into the effectiveness of his promotions. Malon said YouTube advertisers could get more insight into those videos by asking their account representatives for more information. Representatives can provide advertising credits. Ads from Disney, Hulu, HBO Max, Focus Features and dozens of other companies from various industries were found alongside unauthorized film and television uploads, Adalytics said. Pirates deployed a range of deceptive tactics to evade YouTube's anti-piracy algorithms. Some uploaded and voluntarily removed copyrighted videos on the same day, racking up viewers before being caught. Other pirates mirrored the videos to reverse the images, or cropped the frames in an effort to trick the Content ID system. Still others placed clips of regular people at the end of a Hollywood blockbuster video to further cover their tracks, Adalytics and the Times found. Franaszek said Adalytics clients who paid for advertising in videos that were removed over copyright issues had a simple request: 'to have visibility into what content their YouTube ad dollars are funding, and where their ads appear.'
Observer
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Observer
YouTube pirates cashing in on Hollywood's Blockbusters
SAN FRANCISCO — After spending about $100 million on 'Lilo & Stitch,' a live-action remake of a 2002 animated film, Disney had plenty to celebrate. The film pulled in $361 million worldwide on its opening weekend in May and bested 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' at the box office. However, the company also had cause for concern. In the days after the Disney film's opening, a pirated version of 'Lilo & Stitch' proved to be a hit on YouTube, where more than 200,000 people viewed it, potentially costing Disney millions of dollars in additional sales, according to research from Adalytics, a firm that analyzes advertising campaigns for brands. The findings of the research shed new light on the copyright issues that once threatened to upend YouTube's business. They also show how advertisers have unwittingly supported illicit content on YouTube, and they provide rare data about piracy on the platform. YouTube has long tried to tamp down piracy, but users who upload stolen films and television shows have employed new tactics to evade the platform's detection tools, the research showed, including cropping films and manipulating footage. YouTube then recommended the uploaded videos to users on its homepage, promoting pirated streaming of box office releases like 'Lilo & Stitch,' or movies exclusively available on streaming platforms, like 'Captain America: Brave New World,' according to screen recordings compiled by Adalytics and an analysis by The New York Times. YouTube, which is owned by Google, may also have generated revenue from some stolen videos, though it's unclear how much money it may have made. The company has a program known as Content ID to identify videos protected by copyright. It allows copyright holders to block the videos, share in advertising sales of the videos, or receive data about who views the videos. Over the years, YouTube has paid billions of dollars to rights holders. YouTube reported flagging 2.2 billion videos last year and said rights holders permitted about 90% of those videos to stay on the platform. Jack Malon, a spokesperson for YouTube, said the company does not analyze the less than 10% of videos it removes at the request of copyright holders and does not track how many of those videos may be recently released full-length movies. The channels that uploaded the videos of 'Lilo & Stitch' and 'Captain America: Brave New World' were terminated for violating YouTube's policies on spam, Malon said. He declined to say whether the company had profited from commercials shown in copyrighted videos that evaded detection by Content ID or racked up views before rights holders asked that they be taken down. At YouTube's request, Adalytics and the Times provided 200 videos for YouTube to review, most of them full-length films. YouTube analyzed the videos but declined to provide insight into what percentage of the films their rights holders had permitted to stay up or had required to be removed. 'To frame these videos as 'illicit' without first reviewing the specific choices made by each rights holder misunderstands how the media landscape on YouTube works today,' Malon said. While 'mistakes do occur' on YouTube, he said, he dismissed the Adalytics report as an effort to get companies to sign up for the firm's services. Holders of copyrights for the videos, including all the major film studios, did not respond when asked for comment by the Times. The founder of Adalytics, Krzysztof Franaszek, who conducted the research, said he had observed 9,000 examples of possible copyright violations, 'including full-length movies that were in theatrical release, Netflix exclusives such as 'Extraction 2,' TV shows such as 'Family Guy' and live NCAA college football games.' The videos collectively had more than 250 million views. More than 100 of these uploads were also reviewed by the Times. Movies from every major film studio were found on YouTube in unofficial streams uploaded from last July to May, Adalytics found. When briefed on the research findings, Larissa Knapp, the chief content protection officer of the Motion Picture Association, a trade group for movie studios, said she found them concerning. At one point, the anti-piracy work between the studios and YouTube 'did work,' Knapp said. 'But now it seems like some of the stuff may have gone off the rails if illegal content is being placed with ads.' The research recalled a time in YouTube's history when Hollywood accused the platform of profiting from its stolen content. In 2007, Viacom sued YouTube, claiming it engaged in 'brazen' copyright infringement by allowing uploads of the media company's material without its permission. In 2012, YouTube won the suit by arguing it was shielded from liability by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which exempted YouTube from liability for hosting copyrighted work. The law shifted the burden for protecting a copyright from the platform and video creators to rights holders, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University. Without the rule, he said, 'the internet would not be able to exist in its existing format.' YouTube has tried to work with film studios, television networks and streaming services to combat piracy. Google, YouTube's parent company, developed its Content ID technology to recognize copyrighted videos, and YouTube became more aggressive at policing its platform for piracy. Copyright holders gained the right to either have the content removed or collect a share of the advertising revenue the videos generated. The box office in the United States and Canada routinely loses $1 billion each year to piracy, which is roughly 15% of its annual haul, according to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a trade group of 50 entertainment companies that tries to reduce piracy. Franaszek began the research after his advertising clients noticed that as much as 60% of their ad spending on YouTube went to videos or channels that were labeled 'no longer available.' After digging deeper, he found that his clients had paid to support content that YouTube later removed because it violated company policies against nudity, violence or hate speech, or because of other offenses. When videos are removed from the platform, YouTube scrubs advertisers' records so that they can no longer see the name of the video. Advertisers have to go to the link for the removed video to see if it was removed for a copyright violation, Franaszek said. He added that the platform did not fully reimburse the advertisers for the cost of commercials in those videos. Erich Garcia, a senior vice president at which lets consumers compare insurance offerings, said his company's ads routinely ran with videos that had disappeared, limiting his insight into the effectiveness of his promotions. Malon said YouTube advertisers could get more insight into those videos by asking their account representatives for more information. Representatives can provide advertising credits. Ads from Disney, Hulu, HBO Max, Focus Features, and dozens of other companies from various industries were found alongside unauthorized film and television uploads, Adalytics said. Pirates deployed a range of deceptive tactics to evade YouTube's anti-piracy algorithms. Some uploaded and voluntarily removed copyrighted videos on the same day, racking up viewers before being caught. Other pirates mirrored the videos to reverse the images or cropped the frames to trick the Content ID system. Still, others placed clips of regular people at the end of a Hollywood blockbuster video to further cover their tracks, Adalytics and The Times found. Franaszek said Adalytics clients who paid for advertising in videos that were removed over copyright issues had a simple request: 'to have visibility into what content their YouTube ad dollars are funding, and where their ads appear.' This article originally appeared in
New York Times
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
YouTube Pirates Are Cashing In on Hollywood's Summer Blockbusters
After spending about $100 million on 'Lilo & Stitch,' a live-action remake of a 2002 animated film, Disney had plenty to celebrate. The film pulled in $361 million worldwide on its opening weekend in May and bested 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' at the box office. But the company also had cause to be concerned. In the days after the Disney film's opening, a pirated version of 'Lilo & Stitch' proved to be a hit on YouTube, where more than 200,000 people viewed it, potentially costing Disney millions of dollars in additional sales, according to new research from Adalytics, a firm that analyzes advertising campaigns for brands. The findings of the research shed new light on the copyright issues that once threatened to upend YouTube's business. They also show how advertisers have unwittingly supported illicit content on YouTube, and they provide rare data about piracy on the platform. YouTube has long tried to tamp down piracy, but users who upload stolen films and television shows have employed new tactics to evade the platform's detection tools, the research showed, including cropping films and manipulating footage. YouTube then recommended the uploaded videos to users on its homepage, promoting pirated streaming of box office releases like 'Lilo & Stitch,' or movies exclusively available on streaming platforms, like 'Captain America: Brave New World,' according to screen recordings compiled by Adalytics and an analysis by The New York Times. YouTube, which is owned by Google, may also have generated revenue from some stolen videos, though it's unclear how much money the platform may have made. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
