The Pirate Bay and several other locally significant 'pirate' sites have been placed on an advertising blacklist. The initiative is the fruit of a collaboration between anti-piracy group Rights Alliance and Swedish Advertisers, an association of advertisers with more than 600 member companies.

There’s a theory among anti-piracy organizations that if unauthorized sites like The Pirate Bay can be separated from their finances they’ll eventually become a burden to their operators and close down.

This “follow the money” approach is gaining momentum worldwide and is largely centered on the companies financing pirate sites with their advertising spend.

Last week Sweden became the latest country to launch an initiative designed to stop ads appearing on torrent, streaming and other related sites. A partnership between anti-piracy outfit Rights Alliance and advertising association Swedish Advertisers, the partnership has clear aims.

“The aim of the project is to raise awareness, so that advertisers/brands don´t end up on the wrong sites and also to try to stop money from legal companies flowing to illegal sites,” Sara Lindbäck from Rights Alliance informs TorrentFreak.

To that end, Swedish Advertisers have come up with a set of recommendations designed to keep ads away from unlicensed sites. They include observing good ethics, avoiding advertising contracts that include bulk sales, and considering where ads are ultimately placed, beyond simply targeting a specific audience at a certain price.

According to the advertising association the initiative has been well received. As a result they’ve publicly announced the first batch of sites to be added to their fledgling ‘pirate blacklist’, a boycott which will be observed by around 600 advertisers.

“The recommendations have become very popular so now we are taking this a step further by naming movie sites where serious advertisers’ brands certainly should not be seen,” says Anders Ericson, CEO of Swedish Advertisers.

Topping the list in terms of popularity is The Pirate Bay, the Swedish born torrent site that simply refuses to die. Nine others currently being named are Dreamfilmhd.org, Sweflix.to, Swefilmer.ws, Swefilm.tv, Swesub.tv, Laddanerfilmer.com, Svenskafilmer.nu, Undertexter.se and film365.se.

“There has been an evolvement over time where the illegal sites are getting more and more commercial and getting substantial amounts from advertisements,” Lindbäck says.

“For example in the Swefilmer case where 13 million SEK ($1.57m) has been traced through the advertisement broker/platforms.”

The majority of the sites present on the blacklist do indeed contain large amounts of advertising, sometimes to the point where they become somewhat irritating to use. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop big brands from advertising on them.

Dreamfilmhd, for example, carries advertising for Bet365 and Coral, two well-known gambling companies regularly featured on other pirate sites.

Interestingly, another ‘offender’ is Sky Bet. This gambling outfit is owned by British Sky Broadcasting, a massive media company whose parent is 21st Century Fox. Their somewhat hypocritical popup ad is shown below.

In order to suffer the full onslaught of advertisers, TF fired up an unprotected browser and deliberately clicked around on the sites in question to see what kind of ads we could discover. Major advertisers already seem few and far between but there is work to be done.

Largely though it’s a miserable user experience, with popups, popunders, ads for scammy fake download sites, plus get-rich-quick schemes regularly bombarding the senses. As schemes like this one in Sweden and others around the world really begin to bite, expect more of the same.

Pirate sites will almost certainly be able to find advertisers willing to put hands in pockets but as times get tough, the quality of those ads is likely to deteriorate even further still. With that, user experience will also decline. Will pirates put up with the junk? Time will tell.