Entertainment industry struggles with 215 billion visits to pirate sites

• By Eric Randolph/AFP, Cannes, France

Anti-piracy authorities say they have cracked down on illegal streaming of movies and TV, but figures show it is booming, with 215 billion visits to illegal websites last year.

UK-based MUSO claims the most comprehensive data on piracy sites, showing an 18% increase in 2021 compared to last year, covering 480,000 movies and TV shows.

“Acquiring illegal content is as easy as ever,” said MUSO CEO Andy Chatterley.

The entertainment industry isn’t giving up.

It recognizes that previous efforts have backfired. Hefty fines for individuals who download a few movies make them look like corporate bullies, and court-ordered blocking of sites is usually a waste of time.

These days, they’re focusing on big fish — “people buying supercars with the millions of dollars they’ve made off bootleg sites,” in the words of Stan McCoy, president and managing director of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Motion Picture Association representing Hollywood studios.

It is a key member of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), formed in 2017 to coordinate global anti-piracy efforts. It is responsible for tracking large operators and alerting the police.

This year, ACE helped shut down carriers in Spain, Brazil, Germany, Vietnam, Egypt and Tunisia, each with millions of monthly customers.

The group claims to have achieved tangible results, measured in jail terms for operators and reduced choice for users.

ACE said the number of illegal subscription services in the US has been reduced from 1,443 to 143.

However, free entertainment is still easy to find.

It took only a few minutes for an inexperienced AFP reporter to Google a list of illegal streaming sites and gain access to the popular shows “Succession” and “White Lotus” without any registration or payment. latest episodes.

Many were undeterred by the crackdown. The 1.2 million members of the r/piracy discussion board on Reddit have every possible justification for their hobbies, from the cost of legal streaming sites to inaccessibility in some countries to vague anti-capitalist invective.

Some were very candid: “I don’t have any excuses. I could afford it all if I wanted to, but I’d rather save for my retirement than donate my money to a media company CEO who makes a thousand times what I make ,” wrote Reddit user ScarecrowJohnny.

One factor currently dominates: the explosion of streaming options, with content now distributed across increasingly expensive subscriptions from Netflix, Amazon.com Inc, Hulu, HBO and others.

Reddit user Jaydra wrote: “I used to pay for one or two, but now there are 50 damn things, everything in the world costs more money almost every day, so I’m back to pirating.”

However, the watchdog was unimpressed.

“People are always making excuses for piracy. There used to be not enough options—now there are too many,” McCoy said.

Ironically, as the streaming environment fragments, MUSO’s piracy data has become one of the most accurate ways for media companies to gauge which movies and shows are actually popular. “Piracy is actually the biggest VOD [video-on-demand] The platform of the world,” Chatterley said. “No platform bias, no cost bias, no access bias. You’ll see what people actually want to see. “

“We’ve had clients who see what’s popular on pirate sites and go and buy it for their platform,” Chatterley said.

Since eliminating piracy is unrealistic, perhaps the industry’s most important goal is to make sure it doesn’t become the norm.

“We’ve come a long way to make it easier,” McCoy said. “If people are committed to breaking the law, they will, but it should be a fringe activity, not mainstream.”