Brand Protection
We are an investigations business specifically focussed on working to protect intellectual property and combat fraud in the gaming industry.
Global online piracy has been on the rise for years. Online piracy has now become a significant concern for the gaming industry – often to the detriment of the users of the sites. During the pandemic, traffic to pirated websites increased by 40%, with shadow revenues also increasing.
Our goal is to protect brands against pirated usage and unauthorized distribution of their unique digital content. Our team consists of specialists with unique expertise in the investigation and protection of intellectual property rights, including the grey market, trademark / copyright infringements and software piracy.
Our team of experienced consultants, with knowledge of IPR law, is trained to examine our clients’ operations and identify weak points. We carry out covert surveillance of the online marketplace and proactive investigations identifying those illegitimately profiting from our clients’ IP.
Brand protection is the act of seeking to prevent rogue website operators / copycats and other bad actors from illegally infringing your brand by using your intellectual property (IP), your brand name, brand identity and/or violate your trademarks, copyrights, designs and other types of IP.
Rogue or copycat websites are set up to imitate the official site of your brand, often with a subtly subverted version of your official URL. Other types of rogue websites do not necessarily attempt to replicate the look and feel of your official site, but may instead falsely represent themselves as legitimate partners of yours. Whichever form they take, the purpose of such sites is to profit from your IP and reputation.
Phishing is the act of impersonating your brand in order to gather personal details. These details are often gathered via account set up and contact forms on rogue websites. Once gathered, the details can be used to carry out a variety of other offences.
Social media impersonation is an increasingly common practice that involves creating fake social media accounts under the guise of your official brand, usually with the aim of redirecting your clients to rogue websites that profit from your IP.
It is also vital to recognise that Brand Protection also overlaps with compliance. This is used by brands to ensure that official resellers comply with industry standards and regulations. Compliance is particularly important if you operate in a highly regulated industry such as gaming, where the manner in which you may operate is strictly controlled by governments and independent regulators.
Consumer trust is critical to any brand’s success, but the trust built over years can come under attack from bad actors online. Every digital interaction is an opportunity to reinforce that trust, or an opportunity for it to be weakened forever – it is vital to ensure that you own those interactions, and not a bad actor? Across social media, online marketplaces, organic and paid search, infringers can potentially threaten every digital touchpoint and it is key that brands realize they have a duty of care to their consumers and the need for a brand protection solution to protect them. By helping you to remove risk, we can assist in ensuring that the promises your brand makes to your customers is always kept.
