The City of London Police’s specialist Intellectual Crime Property Unit (PIPCU) is cracking down on illegal download websites.
Officers have told Newsbeat that as well as creating an Infringing Website List (IWL), they will replace adverts with a message from the unit.
They have also been working with the advertising industry to stop household brands advertising on illegal sites.
It is all part of Operation Creative, which began in 2013.
Game of Thrones was the most illegally downloaded TV show for both series two and three consecutively.
During a pilot, rights holders identified 61 websites that were providing unauthorised access to copyrighted content.
After investigating the sites, the police would send a “prevention and deterrent” notice to the domain owners.
If they didn’t comply, the next step was to ask a group of 60 brands, agencies and advertising technology businesses to stop advertising on these websites.
Head of PIPCU, DCI Andy Fyfe said: “Together we have created a process that first and foremost encourages offenders to change their behaviour so they are operating within the law.
“However, if they refuse to comply we now have the means to persuade businesses to move their advertising to different platforms and, if offending continues, for registrars to suspend the websites.”
The level of piracy may be linked to the fact that the TV company behind it – HBO – does not allow Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime or other US streaming services access to its programmes.
It instead restricts them to its own HBO Go online product, which is only available to its cable subscribers.
Source: BBC