Is there anything affiliates can do to help?
 

Can affiliates do anything to help sponsor combat content theft? I mean notifying about rapidshare links and stuff like that or do most sponsors already take care of that?

Yes if you can collect links and send them to sponsors that would help a lot. Many are already doing it, but it's hard to follow all those phorums, even with the help of the content protection services.

Impressive initiative

Respect

Programs should have a standard report formular inside their affiliate section. Maybe an idea for systems like NATS? Cross-reference for bad sites could also be implemented, just like some companies handle payouts.

I have actually spent some time and sent emails to about 20 sponsors with exact links to some places where their content is located. Most of them were very happy for the help.

I've noticed that most of the larger programs already have resources to fight this. It's the mid-sized and smaller guys that seemed to benefit from this the most. However, never wrong with some extra help.

As Nautilus said before, spend some time if you have any and help some of the programs you promote. I'm sure they will appreciate your help.

1. Yes let sponsors know about links
2. Check your trades, so many people with auto trade programs are trading with illegal tube sites etc and don't even know it
3. Check your trades, once in a while If I find a legit site I traded with has gone rogue so i drop him.
4. Watch Traffic Buying, a lot of the illegal tubes and such are buying traffic from people and then selling it back to Traffic Companies at higher costs.. how some of them make cash
5. check who you are trading with when u make a trade, perhaps their site is ok but they are linking to an illegal one, let them know, dont trade with them if they refuse to drop their bad link.... why anyone would knowingly trade with an illegal tube etc type site is beyond me.. if a surfer clicks the link to one of those sites chances are he aint going back to your blog or whatever

6. Educate where you can, some people just don't get why linking to a site with free 30 minute videos is a bad idea , as crazy as that sounds.. i have heard stuff like well the site gives me so much traffic and yet they dont have a lot of sales... hmmm could it be they go to your site see it is legit then decide to go back to the illegal gold mine... i think so.... duh

just my thoughts at 230am hehe laters

you need to protect yourself conractually against such IP infringement...

I think so .