The debate over whether copyright infringement cannibalizes legitimate media consumption has been dragging on for several decades now.

The issue has been researched extensively with both positive and negative effects being reported, varying based on the type of content and the ‘piracy’ source, among other variables.

By now, most experts would agree that watching a new blockbuster on a pirate streaming site isn’t going to magically benefit legitimate sales. However, there are many more nuanced types of copyright infringement, where ‘unauthorized’ use is more likely to have a positive effect.

TikTok Pirates

For example, when a viral clip from a TV series is making the rounds on social media platforms, one could argue that this serves as free advertising. At the same time, this clip is not a direct substitution for the full series, which means that the infringing use can be an opportunity, not just a threat.

To test this hypothesis, researchers from Peking University examined the impact of short and condensed TV show clips posted on Douyin , the Chinese TikTok. Rightsholders typically object to this type of unauthorized use, but is that wise?

The goal of the research was to see whether these ‘pirated’ clips have any effect on legitimate consumption. The researchers used a natural experiment around a massive enforcement spike that started around April 2021, when rightsholders criticized Douyin/TikTok for the infringing activity, which triggered a wave of takedowns.

“In April 2021, over 500 actors and actresses, together with more than 70 major companies and organizations in the industry, protested against copyright infringement on short-form video platforms. They called for platforms like TikTok to actively detect and remove unauthorized film and television content,” the researchers recall.

In response, the Chinese TikTok removed countless problematic clips. The researchers used this ‘natural’ event to see if the takedowns impacted legitimate streaming activity of TV shows on iQIYI, one of China’s most popular subscription streaming platforms.

The researchers analyzed whether the mass takedown event impacted demand for subscription-only ‘VIP’ shows in any way. Non-VIP shows, which are freely accessible to all, acted as a control variable, since these were not the focus of the takedown campaign.

Infringing Clips as Free Promotion

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that popular TikTok clips indeed have a significant effect on legitimate consumption. Taking these ‘unauthorized’ clips offline actually decreased legitimate views.

“Our empirical results reveal a positive effect of TikTok condensed clips on streaming services demand. Specifically, we observed that the boycott event led to an approximately 3% drop in the number of views for the original VIP content on the focal streaming platform,” the researchers write.

“[S]hort-form condensed clips could be viewed as user-generated samples of original video works. They produce positive spillovers by enhancing the visibility of TV series and attracting interested viewers to the full-length content on streaming services,” they add.

This conclusion is quite intuitive in a social media world where ‘influencers’ are widely used to promote content. For some entertainment industry executives, however, it will require some mental gymnastics to fully grasp that seemingly infringing content can be a good thing.

The results also put question marks around the widespread upload filter technologies, that aim to prevent the unauthorized use of video and music. While full copies are never a good thing, small clips may be beneficial in some cases.

“Although streaming platforms may be suffering declining engagement these days, our results show that among various kinds of alternative contents on short-form video platforms, user-generated condensed clips might not be foes but actually friends,’ the researchers note.

Not all TV Shows Benefit

In addition to this overall conclusion, the researchers found some interesting moderating variables. Apparently, not all short clips have equal promotional value. TV series with more complex plots, which are harder to summarize in clips of a few minutes, benefit most from social media clips.

Translated into genres, the data reveals that ‘crime’ and ‘fantasy’ shows gain more from this type of social media promotion than ‘romance’ or ‘family” shows. According to the researchers, this makes sense as ‘condensed’ clips of complex shows are less likely to act as a replacement for the full show.

“Given the constraints of condensed clips of only a few minutes in length, it is highly impractical to include every twist and turn for crime and fantasy genres, making them less susceptible to replacement by condensed clips,” the researchers note.

In a similar vein, unauthorized clips of highly rated shows tend to have more promotional value than those that feature shows with bad ratings. This also makes sense, intuitively, as a teaser of a bad show might put potential viewers off and vice versa.

These and other results are explained in detail in the full paper titled Pirating Foes or Creative Friends? Effects of User-Generated Condensed Clips on Demand for Streaming Services , which will be published in the academic journal Marketing Science.

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Yang, Guangxin and Zhang, Yingjie and Liu, Hongju, Pirating Foes or Creative Friends? Effects of User-Generated Condensed Clips on Demand for Streaming Services. Available at SSRN

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In recent years, website blocking has become one of the most widely-used anti-piracy enforcement mechanisms in the world.

ISPs in several dozen countries prevent subscribers from accessing a variety of ‘pirate’ sites. New blocks are added every month and rightsholders are actively lobbying to expand the measure to the United States .

While site blocking is by no means a panacea, copyright holders are convinced that it has a notable effect and have research to back this up.

Piracy Blocking Research

One of the earliest pieces of peer-reviewed academic research, based on UK data, showed that the local Pirate Bay blockade had little effect on legal consumption. Instead, pirates turned to alternative pirate sites, proxies, or VPNs to bypass the virtual restrictions.

A follow-up study added more color and brought good news for rightsholders. The research found that once a large number of sites were blocked in the UK, overall pirate site traffic decreased . At the same time, the researchers observed an increase in traffic to legal services such as Netflix.

The latter findings are frequently cited in policy discussions around site blocking. While the results are solid, they are limited too. They only apply to the UK situation, for example, and the long-term effects of site-blocking efforts on piracy and legal consumption are missing.

New Findings: India

A new non-peer-reviewed working paper published by Chapman University and Carnegie Mellon University researchers aims to fill the first gap. Using similar methodology to that seen in the earlier UK study, the researchers studied the effects of blocking in India and Brazil.

In India, the researchers studied two separate blocking waves. The first took place in December 2019, when 380 piracy websites were blocked. The second wave was implemented in September 2020, when Indian ISPs blocked 173 additional piracy sites.

The researchers checked browsing data to see if the blocks were effective and whether pirates switched to unblocked sites. Visits to legal video entertainment services, including Netflix and Hotstar, were monitored as well.

The results of these studies largely replicate the UK findings. The first Indian blocking wave triggered an 8.1% increase in visits to legal sites, and the second wave led to a 3.1% increase. There was no statistically significant increase in visits to unblocked pirate sites.

Overall, the Indian findings suggest that site blocking can increase legal consumption without driving traffic to other, unblocked pirate sites.

New Findings: Brazil

Next, the researchers turned their attention to Brazil, where 174 piracy sites were blocked in July 2021. Using a similar research design, they found that these pirate site blocks resulted in a 5.2% increase in visits to paid streaming websites.

Unlike in India, there was a significant increase in traffic to unblocked pirate sites in Brazil. This is similar to the ‘dispersion’ effect that was previously found in response to UK blockades.

[I]n Brazil we found that blocking 174 piracy sites caused a statistically significant increase in visits to unblocked piracy sites, in essence dispersing some piracy,” the researchers write.

‘Pirate Site Blocking Works’

These findings suggest that the positive effects of pirate site blocking are not limited to the UK. This will be music to the ears of rightsholders who wish to expand pirate site blocking globally, with the US as the ‘holy grail’.

“[The research] provides evidence that website blocking in Brazil and India in 2019, 2020, and 2021 has a similar effect as it did in the UK in 2013 and 2014, despite the fact that during that intervening time the landscape of piracy and legal consumption has changed significantly.

“In short, our results suggest that piracy website blocking remains an effective strategy for increasing legal consumption of copyrighted content,” the researchers add.

While the latest study isn’t peer-reviewed separately, it indeed confirms the earlier findings. That said, piracy research is dynamic and never complete, so many questions remain unanswered.

More (Lasting) Conclusions?

One question that remains concerns the lasting effect on behavior. The studies above only measure consumption patterns in the span of a few months, and it’s possible that some pirates eventually relapse.

Brett Danaher of Chapman University, the lead author of the paper, recognizes this shortcoming. Ideally, he would like to do more longitudinal research but obtaining that type of data is not easy.

“The biggest challenge there is finding a panel company that tracks a consistent set of users for longer periods of time,” Danaher tells TorrentFreak.

“With the companies we’ve been working with, the size of the panel shrinks exponentially as we ask for longer panels. It’s a real challenge.”

The researcher mentions that there is a study that found that the effects of blocking measures are short-lived, but that only applies to a single site, Kino.to . This ‘relapse’ finding was later supported by an Italian study , that included over two dozen sites.

Danaher further explained that the latest study wasn’t peer-reviewed because it’s a replication study. The research uses the same methodology as the previously published UK study, which was peer-reviewed and published in MIS Quarterly .

“Our thought was that there was useful information in this study and the methodology itself has already undergone peer review, but the peer review process for this paper would have taken a lot of time with little probability of landing in a premier journal.”

MPA Funding

Finally, it should be noted that this new India/Brazil study, like previous ones, is carried out as part of Carnegie Mellon University’s Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics (IDEA). The initiative is partly funded by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) which is the driving force behind many global site blocking efforts.

The MPA has sent unrestricted gifts to IDEA center since 2012, totaling several million dollars. In recent years, the gift amounted to $1 million annually.

There is no evidence that the research findings are in any way influenced by this funding, of course. The connected researchers have repeatedly pointed out that they operate completely independently, which Danaher confirms.

“To me, the top value of the center is that it allows me to sometimes access data to which I otherwise would not have access but protects me from outside influences,” Danaher notes, using the movie industry sales figures that were used in a Megaupload study as an example

“In other words, once I get studio data through the IDEA Center for a particular project, I am guaranteed the ability to publish my results for that paper regardless of what they say,” he adds.

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Danaher, Brett and Sivan, Liron and Smith, Michael D. and Telang, Rahul, The Impact of Online Piracy Website Blocking on Consumer Choices (February 12, 2024). Available at SSRN .

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Last week, new data published by piracy tracking firm MUSO and consulting firm Kearney showed that video piracy is growing globally.

With over 141 billion annual visits worldwide, there’s a massive audience outside of legal channels.

The full report was yet to be made available at the time of our initial report. While that doesn’t change any of the overall conclusions, there are some extra details worth highlighting.

Classifying Countries by Piracy Volume and Growth

The full report includes a rather insightful graph that ranks countries based on the number of visits to pirate sites per citizen, and how the rate has changed between 2018 and 2023. This allows for an intuitive comparison and highlights where piracy presents the biggest threat.

These two data points make it possible to classify countries into four buckets:

– Hotspots: Pirate site visits per capita are high and growing
– Recovering: Pirate site visits per capita are high but declining
– Growth Risk: Pirate site visits per capita are low but growing
– Positive Sign: Pirate site visits per capita are low and declining

In graph form the results look like this, with the piracy hotspots in the top right quadrant, and the growth risks in the top left.

Canada vs. Brazil

Based on the presented data, Canada is classified as one of the piracy hotspots. The country has a relatively high number of pirate site visits per capita (+90) and that number also grew roughly 50% between 2018 and 2023.

Other hotspots include Sweden, Hong Kong and Qatar. Meanwhile, Singapore has by far the largest number of pirate site visits per capita, but with a relatively low growth rate compared to the other hotspots.

On the other end of the graph (bottom left), we find Japan where the piracy frequency is low and declining. The same also applies to Brazil to a lesser degree, which may be in part the result of the broad and frequent piracy crackdowns in the Latin American country.

Growth Risks (including the U.S.)

The bottom right of the graph is mostly empty but countries such as New Zealand and Portugal appear to be ‘recovering’. This means that they have relatively high piracy numbers, but those have declined over the past years.

Finally, there are the “growth risks”. These include countries where the piracy volume is relatively low, but growing rapidly.

This quadrant logically includes countries where broadband access has grown significantly over the past years. India, Nigeria, and Ghana are the top contenders here, all with a growth rate of more than 100%.

Interestingly, the United States is also classified as a growth risk. While it has dominated in absolute piracy traffic for years, the number of visits per capita were relatively low. However, the piracy rate is rising in the U.S. too.

All in all, the graph provides an easy-to-understand overview of how visits to video pirate sites are developing in various countries. It will be interesting to see how these trends develop over time.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Despite the widespread availability of legal options, online piracy remains rampant. Every day pirate sites are visited hundreds of millions of times.

This presents a serious problem for major content producers, Hollywood studios included, who are working hard to shut down the most egregious piracy sources.

141 Billion Visits in 2023

Fresh data released by piracy tracking outfit MUSO and consulting firm Kearney suggests that piracy remains rampant nonetheless. In a report released today they reveal that there were 141 billion video piracy visits globally in 2023, a 12% increase since 2019.

It’s not clear why the report uses a comparison base this far out. The reported visits for 2023 are up roughly 10% when compared to previously released data for 2022.

The data covers over 730,000 films and TV titles and includes a wide variety of pirate sites. These include sites that offer software and music, but only visits to video content are counted. Traditionally, this is the most popular content category by far.

TV, Films, Anime, and Sport

Zooming in on the numbers we see that film and TV content are in the lead, good for 65% of the visits. Anime is in second place with a quarter of all video piracy visits, followed at a distance by live sports (9%) and live linear broadcasts (1%).

There are some regional differences in what type of content is most popular. In part, this depends on how easy or affordable it is to access legal content. In the Asia–Pacific region, for example, live sports accounts for 5.3% of pirate site visits, a figure that can reach 11.3% in the US.

In previous years we have repeatedly mentioned that the United States is the top country when it comes to the absolute number of pirate site visits. There was no change in 2023, but there is some serious competition now.

India Rises Through the Ranks

India is on its way to surpass the U.S. as the top piracy nation in the world. This isn’t a surprise as India is also the country with the largest population, over 1.4 billion people. However, the increase in Internet penetration is just as important.

Roughly 15 years ago, India only had about five million broadband subscribers. Today, there are more than 700 million. This massive increase in access has left its mark on society and, as predicted , proved to be a growth market for pirates.

The 2023 report places the U.S. and India as joint leaders, both with 11% of the global video piracy visits. However, the piracy rate in India has increased 80% year-on-year, which suggests that it will be the sole leader next year. The top four is completed by Russia (6%) and the UK (3%) at a respectable distance.

Comparing countries without taking the population size into account doesn’t say much, of course. If we look at the average number of visits per capita, a new region comes to the fore.

Europe leads the relative chart with 34 pirate site visits per capita, followed by North America with 26 visits. With 13 visits, the relative numbers are much lower in South America, dropping to ‘just’ 5 visits per capita in the Asia-Pacific region.

Piracy as a Goldmine

These numbers are not exactly uplifting for the video entertainment industry. However, MUSO and Kearney stress that understanding why people pirate, and responding appropriately, can help to convert some pirates into paying consumers.

“The global rise of video content piracy is concerning. However, with a slight adjustment of perspective, it also becomes an opportunity for those media companies that can change their approach to commercialize pirate users and plug the revenue leakage,” Kearney’s Christophe Firth says.

MUSO Founder and CEO, Andy Chatterley, adds that piracy today is more of a problem than ever, so understanding why people pirate is key.

“MUSO’s data is driving real transformation for entertainment companies to truly understand how their content can be better positioned, better marketed and better tailored towards a vast audience that is not currently being satisfied with legal offerings,” Chatterley says.

According to the press release, legal subscription services can earn billions extra if they convert just a fraction of these pirates. This messaging is in part out of self-interest, as MUSO offers piracy insights and solutions as a commercial service.

In closing, it’s worth highlighting that the numbers reported above only apply to regular pirate site visits. This means that a large and growing part of the piracy ecosystem, including dedicated piracy apps and illegal IPTV offerings, are not included.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

For more than a decade, the French government has produced a report detailing the digital content consumption habits of French internet users.

Currently produced by telecoms regulator Arcom, the content consumption barometer report quantifies consumption of major content categories including movies, TV shows, live sports broadcasts, music, video games, software, and audiobooks, among others. It aims to profile consumers of content, map changes in consumption habits and sources, and gauge public perception of legal content availability. Arcom published the report’s 2023 edition yesterday.

Overall Exposure to Cultural Content

In terms of overall exposure to digital cultural and sporting content, the report estimates that 87% of internet users aged 15 and over, around 45 million people, were consumers in 2023. That’s up from 86% in 2022.

Of the dozen content categories covered in the report, movies were consumed by 55%, music by 50%, and TV series by 49%, meaning no change in the most popular content categories consumed in 2023 versus last year.

Paying (And Not Paying) For Content

For 2023, Arcom reports that 61% of consumers or 27.5 million people, paid to consume digital content online. This year the average monthly spend was €38.00 ($41.00) per month, a significant increase from the €32.00 ($34.50) reported in 2022. The report notes that this is the biggest increase in average spending in recent years, with Arcom describing the uplift as “remarkable” in the context of price inflation.

One of Arcom’s key responsibilities is to reduce piracy rates. In 2021, around 27% of internet users consumed at least one piece of pirated content, a figure that reduced to 24% in 2022.

Arcom introduces 2023’s overall piracy rate as follows: “The fall observed in 2022 in the proportion of illegal consumption of digital cultural and sporting content has continued this year,” while later adding, “..this continues the decline seen in 2022.”

While this year’s figures are provided, the “fall observed in 2022” was actually the difference between an overall rate of 27% in 2021 and 24% in 2022, in other words a three percentage point reduction in the overall piracy rate, aka success. Perhaps a less ambiguous statement would’ve been more helpful to describe the state of play this year.

In 2023 there was zero reduction in the overall piracy rate, i.e. the rate is static year-on-year. In common with 2022, in 2023 around 24% of internet users still consumed at least one piece of pirated content. The report describes this as illegal content consumption “leveling off.”

Appetite For Piracy Wanes With Age

In common with most other studies conducted in Europe, piracy rates are higher among younger people in France and lower among the older generations.

“The 15-24 and 25-39 age groups are the biggest consumers of illegal digital cultural and sporting content (46% and 36% respectively). Conversely, only 16% of 40–59-year-olds and 7% of 60+ year-olds are involved,” the report notes.

When drilling down into content categories, the report says that a drop in illegal consumption was observed in a quarter.

“This is particularly the case for films and music, two of the three content categories with the highest levels of illegal consumption by internet users in 2022 (-1 point each, to 12% and 6% of internet users respectively),” Arcom reports.

“While illegal consumption of TV series, the second most pirated content in 2022, remains stable in 2023 within the internet user population (9% illegal consumption), there has been a slight fall among those who consume it (18%, -1 point).”

Consumption of Illegal Streams & Downloads Fall

The two most popular methods of obtaining infringing content in France are streaming and direct downloading, often referred to as DDL. However, this year’s report from Arcom finds that both methods experienced declining popularity in 2023.

While remaining the most frequently used method among consumers overall (49% and 38% respectively), streaming fell two percentage points and downloading four percentage points versus rates in 2022.

Arcom says that these declines in two key categories demonstrate “the positive effects of the anti-piracy measures implemented in 2022 and 2023.” While that may well be the case, if overall piracy rates remained static this year, something else must’ve taken up the slack.

As the Arcom graph shows, remarkable gains are on display in two categories. In 2022, services in the ‘Usenet and newsgroups’ category were used by 11% of French internet users but in 2023, that figure has increased to 16%. The other category climbing quickly, Cloud services, reached a peak of 21% in 2020 and then fell to 19% and 16% in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

In 2023, improved privacy versus other illicit content access methods may have contributed to Cloud services’ 2020-equalling usage rate of 21%.

Illegal Access Rates Overall

Arcom reports a “stabilization” in illicit consumption of live sports broadcasts for 2023. This year’s rate of 4% is identical to that reported in 2022, but still an improvement over 2021 where 6% of internet users consumed liver sports from illegal sources.

In summary, illegal streaming was used by 49% of internet users in 2023, direct downloading (DDL) by 38%, social networks by 32%, with peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent hanging on to around 26% of users.

The surprise package of Usenet (16%) and Cloud services (21%) returning to rates not seen since 2020 might be the trend to watch since Arcom has much less control over these methods. Deterring the use of streaming and downloading services may be considered a success, but that could be tempered if more complex issues are encountered further down the road.

Arcom’s 2023 Barometer report is available here (pdf, French)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ( IFPI ) presents itself as the voice of the global recording industry.

The group represents roughly 8,000 members globally, ranging from smaller independent labels to the largest labels on the planet.

Part of its mandate is to keep an eye on how the music industry evolves. This includes legal consumption as well as unauthorized offerings, more commonly known as music piracy.

Music piracy exists in various forms but in recent years stream-ripping has emerged as the most significant. Several years ago IFPI reported that the phenomenon had become a bigger threat than any other form of music piracy.

According to IFPI’s Engaging with Music 2023 report released this week, online piracy remains a problem worldwide, stream-ripping and illegal music apps in particular.

“Music piracy is still very much an issue, with stream ripping and the use of illegal mobile apps among the leading causes for concern,” IFPI’s Chief Executive Frances Moore says.

“This illegal activity has a severe and direct impact on royalties which should be returning to those investing in and creating music. We will continue to work with governments and the wider music industry to ensure the most secure digital environment possible for music creators and fans alike.”

One in Three Are Music Pirates

The report shares the results of an extensive survey, which polled over 43,000 Internet users worldwide. The overall conclusion is that legal consumption is flourishing, but the survey also found that plenty of people are still using stream-rippers and piracy tools.

In the countries that formed the basis for these reports historically, almost one in ten people (29%) admit to using illegal means to listen to or download music. With 26%, stream-ripping remains dominant, with unlicensed apps not far behind (20%).

Piracy is most prevalent among the younger demographic (16-24), where 43% of respondents are self-confessed pirates. When asked about their reasons for pirating, more than half of all respondents (55%) said that they do it to avoid paying for licensed music streaming subscriptions.

Piracy rates have stabilized somewhat over the years but the problem persists. That said, it’s not the complete picture. The polled countries for these ‘global’ statistics exclude India, China, Nigeria, and other emerging countries where piracy is rampant.

Piracy is Rampant in Developing Countries

IFPI reports the numbers for these countries separately, making it possible to compare global data over time. If they were included, however, global piracy rates would be much higher.

In India, for example, 74% of respondents admit to using illegal methods to listen to music. In other emerging countries such as China (75%), Indonesia (66%) and Nigeria (76%), we see similarly high piracy rates.

This is an entirely different picture than mostly developed Western countries, which have been part of IFPI’s long-term polling sample. A complete overview of the polled countries in the global dataset is available below .

Finally, it is worth highlighting a somewhat unusual statistic. While piracy is rampant in countries such as China and India, legal consumption is very high in these countries too.

In China, 96% of the respondents say they use licensed audio streaming platforms and in India, 94% do the same. This is much higher than the global average of 73% and suggests that music consumers in emerging countries use a combination of legal and illegal sources to fulfill their music demands.

TorrentFreak asked IFPI to explain this combined use of legal and illegal music streaming, zooming in on India. IFPI’s Director of Insight & Analysis, David Price, notes that the legal music consumption largely relies on free tiers there.

“India has a range of domestic and international audio streaming services, and most of the engagement with these is through the free tier. Take-up of premium streaming is hampered by the continued use of piracy services,” Price says.

All in all the report offers a valuable snapshot of how the use of various piracy tools and services changes over time. It will be interesting to see how these trends develop in the future.

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This article was updated with a comment from Dr. David Price, IFPI’s Director of Insight & Analysis, which came in shortly after publication.

– The global sample includes respondents from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, UK and USA.

– Details on consumers from China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and UAE are reported separately.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Over the years, we’ve witnessed dozens of anti-piracy campaigns. Initially, these pointed out that piracy is illegal and immoral, hoping to change people’s views.

“ Don’t Copy That Floppy ” and “ You Wouldn’t Steal a Car ” are prime examples of these early attempts. While these campaigns captured the interest of a broad public, mostly for amusement purposes, they did little to stop piracy.

In recent years the tone of anti-piracy campaigns has changed. Instead of focusing on legal aspects and financial losses, they now place emphasis on pirates themselves being at risk , by associating piracy with ransomware, credit card theft, and other evils.

Just in the past month, two public service announcement campaigns were launched, both with a strong focus on security threats. In addition to rightsholders, these campaigns include State Attorneys General and the U.S. Government’s IPR Center , each adding extra weight to the messaging.

Is Cyber Hygiene a Remedy to IPTV Infringement?

Anti-piracy groups must have a good reason to focus on security issues instead of copyright law. Perhaps the former is more effective?

A new paper titled “ Is cyber hygiene a remedy to IPTV infringement? ” suggests that this could indeed be the case.

With this study, researchers from the University of Oxford, Bournemouth University and Hamad bin Khalifa University researched how psychological factors, including risk-taking and security behaviors, impact people’s tendency to use shady IPTV services. Put differently, what determines whether people are more likely to use ‘risky’ piracy services?

After completing several questionnaires, the UK-based respondents were presented with a mockup of an IPTV service. There were several mockup versions, ranging from a clean interface to ones with popups, even spy- or ransomware. For each version, respondents had to rate the perceived risk level, and their risk-taking inclination.

The resulting scores allow the researchers to see how much risk people are willing to take, with the built-in assumption that unlicensed ‘pirate’ streaming services generally have more risky signs.

Internet Addicted Pirates with Psychopath Personalities

The researchers hypothesized that people who score higher on Internet addiction traits tend to be less reluctant to use risky piracy services. The same should apply to people with dark personalities , which is a combination of the personality traits narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.

The results of the study confirmed these predictions, showing that people who score higher on Internet addiction and dark personality traits are more likely to see risky streaming platforms as less problematic.

Vasilis Katos , Computer Science Professor at Bournemouth University, informs TorrentFreak that this is both good and bad news for anti-piracy advocates. Dark personality traits are relatively fixed and hard to change, but digital addiction can be addressed.

“Our findings show that people’s propensity to risk taking – in our case viewing AV content with a risk of getting infected by malware – is dependent on two main aspects: one’s dark personality traits and the degree of digital addiction.”

“The former is considered pretty constant and stable over time, as the dark personality traits have genetical and biological components, therefore less prone to change. For digital addiction, however, we accept that there are interventions where people can adopt in order to heal,” Katos says.

Cybersecurity Behavior

There is an important caveat, as the researchers stress that addressing Internet addiction might not only affect online piracy, but also legal consumption. After all, binge-watching on official streaming platforms is also a form of addiction.

A more straightforward option to deter pirates lies in the online security realm. The study reveals that people’s cybersecurity practices and behaviors, mediate the link between digital addiction and risky IPTV viewing.

This mediating effect suggests that when people are warned or educated about the risk of malware, fraud, and other evils on pirate sites, they are less likely to use these services.

“[I]n order to reduce the likelihood of someone consuming illegal IPTV content, we can address their digital addiction and/or improve their cybersecurity behaviour and hygiene,” Katos notes.

Piracy Genes?

Put differently, the anti-piracy campaigns that focus on security awareness aspects, which we have seen pop up repeatedly in recent years, can be an effective strategy; perhaps even more effective than legal threats.

That said, the researchers stress that piracy is a complex issue that no single measure can solve. People who are born with dark personalities, particularly the psychopathy trait, are genetically predisposed to take more risks online.

No matter how many malware threats there are, some people are simply willing to take the risk; just like there will always be people who step in to launch new piracy services. It’s in their genes, apparently.

“[A]lthough these [security-focused] campaigns could contribute to the decrease of risky IPTV viewing practices, they will not eliminate the problem, as there is always the portion of the population that are risk takers and perhaps seek thrills, as part of their psyche,” Katos concludes.

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A copy of the preprint article covering the research in detail is available below. The results have not yet been peer-reviewed and should be interpreted as such.

Shah R, Cemiloglu D, Yucel C, Ali R, Katos V. Is cyber hygiene a remedy to IPTV infringement? A study of online streaming behaviours and cybersecurity practices . Research Square; 2023.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In recent years, website blocking has become one of the most widely-used anti-piracy enforcement mechanisms in the world.

ISPs in several dozen countries prevent subscribers from accessing a variety of ‘pirate’ sites. While new blocks are added every month, research on the effectiveness of these efforts is rather limited.

Piracy Blocking Research

One of the earliest pieces of academic research, based on UK data, showed that the local Pirate Bay blockade had little effect on legal consumption . Instead, pirates turned to alternative pirate sites, proxies, or VPNs to bypass the virtual restrictions.

A follow-up study added more color and brought hope for rightsholders. The research showed that once a large number of sites were blocked in the UK, overall pirate site traffic decreased . At the same time, the researchers observed an increase in traffic to legal services such as Netflix.

There have also been several reports suggesting that traffic to domains decreased after blockades were implemented. This seems logical since blocked sites should be harder to reach. However, new research published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) suggests that’s not always true.

WIPO Alert Database

WIPO has an interest in the effectiveness of site blocking as it organizes and maintains the WIPO Alert database . This initiative gathers information on blocked domains in various participating countries, which include Spain, Greece, Italy, Korea, Peru, Lithuania, and Russia.

This online blocking repository can be used by various intermediaries to voluntarily blacklist copyright-infringing websites around the world. Advertising companies, for example, can use it to make sure that their clients’ ads don’t appear on problematic sites.

To gauge the effectiveness of site blocking, WIPO commissioned piracy tracking firm MUSO to compare traffic to pirate site domains, before and after they were blocked. The research was funded by the Republic of Korea, whose data was also part of the study.

New Research Shows Surprising Results

The findings of the study were published by WIPO earlier this month in MUSO’s “ Unlicensed Demand Report “. While there are no hard conclusions to draw, there are some intriguing details that are worth highlighting.

For starters, it appears that traffic data on most blocked domains is absent. Of the 6,573 domain names in the WIPO Alert database, MUSO only has usable traffic data on 432 domains. This includes estimated site visits 90 days before a site is blocked and 90 days after.

An analysis of these 432 domains finds that, as one would predict, nearly 73% of all blocked sites saw traffic numbers decrease after the blocking orders were issued. This clearly shows that ordering Internet providers to restrict access to pirate sites works.

“The data shows that a significant proportion of blocked domains received little to no visits after being blocked. Specifically, 15.7% of domains blocked had no visits subsequent to being blocked,” the report reads.

“Furthermore, 41.4% of blocked domains had either 90% of their visits prior to blocking date or no visits at all after being blocked. This could suggest that infringing domain blocking is an effective measure for reducing traffic to piracy domains.”

Traffic Increased for Some

What’s not specifically highlighted, is the fact that more than a quarter of all blocked domains recorded more visits after they were blocked by ISPs. In other words, piracy increased for these sites.

Surprisingly, 56 domain names only received traffic after they were blocked, which is odd, to say the least.

The impact of blocking measures differs greatly from country to country, with some more effective than others. In Italy, for example, all domain names received fewer visits, but with a sample size of one, that doesn’t say much.

Regional Differences

Looking at the countries with a decent sample size, we see that in the Republic of Korea and Russia, roughly 73% of all domains receive less traffic after being blocked. This is comparable to the global average.

Nearly half of all sites blocked in Korea recorded more than 90% of visits before the blocking or simply no visits at all after being blocked.

In Lithuania, on the other hand, traffic to pirate sites mostly remained the same or even increased after blocking orders were issued. As shown below, close to half of the domains recorded the most traffic after being blocked.

The report doesn’t offer any hard conclusions, but MUSO informs TorrentFreak that if these traffic trends say anything about the success of site blocking, Russia and Korea are the most effective.

We also reached out to WIPO to hear their thoughts on the report, but the organization says that it’s still studying the findings internally.

Further Research

Overall, WIPO and MUSO’s work to measure and understand site-blocking efficacy is a positive development. That said, the report also raises some questions. Could it be that external factors partially influenced the results?

For one, MUSO used a fixed blocking date for each country, as provided by WIPO. However, typically, courts allow ISPs to block sites within a given window after an order is released, so it’s possible that some domains were still reachable after the recorded blocking date.

This delay would explain why people continue to visit the sites, and traffic might have even increased if these blocking orders hit the local news.

In addition, it would be helpful to have a larger domain sample for future research. In the current report, over 93% of all domains were discarded because they weren’t included in MUSO’s data source, or because there simply wasn’t sufficient traffic data.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The European Union Intellectual Property Office ( EUIPO ) regularly conducts studies to see how piracy rates evolve over time.

These studies also identify the various barriers and drivers behind this activity, which helps to shape future policies.

This week, EUIPO released the latest installment of its biannual report on copyright infringement in the EU and UK. This study aims to document various piracy trends and the socioeconomic factors that trigger them.

The EU report is largely based on data from UK piracy tracking firm MUSO , which is widely used for these types of longitudinal studies.

Piracy Rebounds

In previous studies, a clear downtrend was visible, suggesting that piracy had seen its peak. While this may still be the case, the most recent data suggests that there was a notable increase in piracy levels over the past two years.

Overall, the latest study shows that piracy traffic started to grow again at the start of 2021, after years of decline.

“The main finding is that the declining trend seen in the earlier studies seems to be reversing, with piracy increasing again, mainly due to increases in piracy of TV content and publications,” the report reads.

Current piracy levels are still nowhere near what they were five years ago. However, a trend reversal is notable and may suggest that we’re at a pivotal point in time.

COVID Not to Blame

The EU report is the first detailed multi-country piracy study to investigate the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is important, as many stakeholders maintain that this global event increased piracy overall.

Earlier this month, for example, the Motion Picture Association presented the following conclusion in its advice on future anti-piracy strategies.

“Studies show that piracy in the U.S. increased during the lockdown. These trends have continued past the pandemic, as consumers are now more comfortable with accessing copyrighted content through illegal piracy services,” the MPA said.

The Hollywood group based its conclusion on an early week-to-week piracy traffic comparison from MUSO, which indeed signaled a temporary increase. However, a follow-up report by MUSO later clarified that this effect was short-lived, as online piracy declined in the months after.

The new EU study now confirms that piracy was actually lowered during the pandemic, at least in the EU. While American trends are not included, these tend to be similar to those in Europe, at least in terms of direction.

“The models confirm that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to reducing film and TV piracy,” the research concludes, adding that there was no positive or negative effect on music.

Indeed, looking at the graphs presented in the report, there is a clear COVID dip visible. According to the researchers, more people may have switched to legal services during the lockdowns.

“One possible reason for this phenomenon is that users may have opted for legal platforms as a simpler way to access the type of content they are interested in, coupled with limited opportunities to spend money on outside entertainment.”

While not mentioned in the report, another explanation is that fewer high-profile releases came out during the lockdowns. Fewer releases typically result in a piracy dip.

TV Piracy is Booming, Music Not So

Looking at the different content categories, we see that TV piracy remains dominant. According to the researchers, 48 % of the total aggregated piracy volume can be attributed to TV.

TV is also largely responsible for the recent rebound, together with the new publishing category that was added to the report this year. The evolution of all content piracy shows that the piracy totals remain below the 2017 level.

This overview further shows that music piracy, which was once widespread, is now a relatively fringe activity in the EU. This is good news for the music industry, which has seen its enforcement efforts against streamripping platforms pay off.

The EUIPO report also examined live sports piracy for the first time. While the available data is limited, there’s a significant increase of roughly 75% visible between the start of 2021 and the end of 2022.

Regional Differences

Previous studies have shown that streaming is by far the most dominant piracy vehicle today, beating alternatives such as torrents and direct downloads. This trend remains intact.

There are notable regional differences between countries, however. As shown below, film pirates in Romania and Italy almost exclusively rely on streaming, while torrents and direct downloads remain fairly popular in Spain and the Netherlands.

Various countries also differ in the volume and type of content consumed. Piracy is most popular in Estonia and Latvia, while it’s relatively out of favor in Germany and Italy.

The bar chart above further shows different preferences for the type of content. In Greece, film piracy is good for 25% of the total piracy volume, for example, while in Poland it’s as low as 5%.

Income and Legal Options

In addition to providing dozens of descriptive graphs and charts, the researchers also analyzed the data to identify potential key drivers of piracy. This produced some interesting observations.

The econometric analysis, which is limited to the movie, TV, and music categories, shows that the number of available legal alternatives reduces piracy. This means that the availability of more legal streaming services correlates to lower piracy numbers.

The income level of a country has a significant impact on piracy rates. Low per capita income, a high degree of income inequality, and high youth unemployment are all associated with increased consumption of pirated content.

A Massive Caveat

All in all, EUIPO’s biannual report is a great way to measure and track how piracy trends develop over time. That said, it comes with a massive caveat.

The study relies on MUSO’s data and is largely based on website visits. This means that IPTV piracy is not taken into account at all. The same is true for other types of piracy, such as apps and streaming devices.

EU’s own research has shown that IPTV piracy is a billion-dollar industry . While it isn’t as easy to measure as web-based traffic, it would be good to see some more details on it in future reports.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.