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.

Three years ago, Danish law enforcement carried out a series of raids and arrests , effectively dismantling several popular torrent trackers.

These actions were supported by the local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance , which eventually declared victory , noting that all notable pirate sites with Danish roots had reportedly shut down.

Such statements can be dangerous since pirates can be quite resilient, but there is no doubt that the law enforcement actions and subsequence convictions left a mark. So does that mean online piracy lost its appeal too? According to a recent survey, that isn’t the case.

Study: Pirates are Stubborn

The Danish Chamber of Commerce conducts a bi-annual study to track the piracy habits of locals. The most recent results for 2022 were just released and show that illegal streaming and downloading remain prevalent.

Roughly a third of the respondents (33%) admit to having downloaded or streamed something in the past and 15% did so over the past year. The last figure is up from 12% during the previous survey in 2020, and in 2018 it was only 10%.

These figures suggest that, if anything, the number of people who download or stream pirated content is increasing. It should be noted, however, that in the most recent version, people between the ages of 15 and 17 were included too, while earlier samples started at 18 years.

Age certainly matters when it comes to online piracy. Younger people typically pirate more and that’s also reflected in the Danish survey.

56% of Respondents Have Piracy Experience

More than half (56%) of the 15-29 year-olds admit they have downloaded or streamed pirated content in the past. For the 30-39 year-olds, this figure is still relatively high at 52%, but in the higher 50-74 year category, it drops to just 14%.

Younger Danes don’t just pirate more than their older counterparts, piracy prevalence also grows within the group. In 2020, fewer young Danes said they had downloaded or streamed pirated content.

There are also substantial differences between men and women. Men are twice as likely to have pirated something over the past year than women. For some categories, the difference is even more pronounced. For example, men are five times more likely to pirate music.

Social Media

In recent years, the authorities have managed to crack down on local file-sharing communities but that ‘distribution’ role now seems to have shifted to social media platforms.

“In the last two years, police have handed out more [file-sharing] sanctions and investigated more in the area. However, the consequence has been that Danish pirates have moved their illegal behavior on the internet to a new platform, social media,” the survey notes.

Of the 15% who admit to having pirated something over the past year, more than half used social media. YouTube is the most cited piracy gateway, followed by Facebook, TikTok, messenger services, Instagram, and Snapchat. As expected, the use of social media is most prevalent in the youngest age cohort.

Commenting on these findings, Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund calls on social media platforms to take more responsibility, or else.

“Now that the police’s [Special Crime Unit] has stopped the dedicated Danish file-sharing services, it is a real shame that illegal consumption is moving to legal social media,” Fredenslund says.

“This calls for increased efforts from these platforms both in terms of informing users and stopping the distribution of illegal content. It requires the platforms to take an active role, and if there are platforms that do not live up to that responsibility, it may be necessary to involve the authorities.”

You Wouldn’t Steal…

Casper Klynge, Deputy Director of the Danish Chamber of Commerce, notes that streaming piracy presents a huge problem. He believes that it deserves more attention from the authorities, as the unbridled ‘stealing’ threatens the production of future content.

“Streaming digital content without paying for it is basically the same as walking past a store and grabbing items to take home without paying for them,” Klynge says.

This isn’t the first time that piracy is compared to stealing. Interestingly, however, the Chamber of Commerce study shows that many people do see a difference between piracy and shoplifting.

Of all people who participated in the survey, 89% believe that it’s unacceptable to steal candy from a store, while ‘only’ 63% see sharing digital content without permission from rightsholders as unacceptable.

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

In recent years, many people have canceled their expensive cable subscriptions, opting to use cheaper Internet TV instead.

While there are plenty of legal streaming options available, there’s also a broad offer of IPTV services that are specifically set up to deliver content without permission from rightsholders.

These pirate IPTV services are often accessed through relatively cheap subscriptions. However, that doesn’t mean that there’s no money to be made. According to a recent report, income surpassed €1 billion in Europe alone.

Giving Pirate IPTV Operators Credit

This industry isn’t just run by digital vigilantes in dark attics. The money that’s at stake attracts and breeds criminal elements of all sorts. According to a new report from the Digital Citizens Alliance ( DCA ), some operators are even ‘stealing’ from their customers.

The report, titled “Giving Piracy Operators Credit”, details how taking out pirate IPTV subscriptions led to surprise charges from all over the world.

The starting point of the research was a clean credit card. DCA investigators used this to sign up for 20 IPTV services to see what would happen. The names and URLs of all the platforms were shared in the report.

A few weeks after making these payments, unknown charges from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Lithuania started to show up. While it’s not clear which service(s) abused the credit card details, it suggests that not all were safe.

“Within weeks of signing up for piracy subscription services, Digital Citizens investigators’ credit card was targeted for $1,495 in illicit purchases – purportedly for grocery delivery, women’s apparel, computer software, a cash advance, and a large mystery charge of $850 that, fortunately, wasn’t processed.”

Mysterious Charges

Below is an example of a $17.21 charge from “Affectioni”, which DCA links to a woman’s apparel store in Qingdao City, China. Other fraudulent payments ranged from a few dollars to over $200. The $850 charge was blocked by the Capital One bank, which requested additional approval.

These findings suggest that it’s not a great idea to hand over one’s credit card to a shady IPTV service. That’s not rocket science, but it’s worth reiterating. However, it doesn’t mean that all IPTV providers are piggybacking on subscribers’ credit cards.

Generally speaking, it isn’t a great business model to steal from customers, if you’re looking to keep subscribers for the long run. However, some services apparently prefer instant gratification over a long-term relationship.

Call for Action

DCA understandably cautions people to stay away from these services. That may be a good idea for all services that operate illegally. In addition, the group urges consumer groups, online intermediaries, and the U.S. Government to step up.

Payment providers, for example, shouldn’t do business with pirate IPTV services and consumer groups must warn the public about the dangers involved. These warnings can also be issued by the Federal Trade Commission, to carry extra weight.

Last but not least, DCA urges U.S. law enforcement to use the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act ( PLSA ), which passed at the end of 2020, to bring more cases against criminal IPTV streaming services.

“Given that the piracy ecosystem is now a $2 billion industry, the Department of Justice should use that authority to target piracy operators. Doing so would be consistent with the DOJ’s prioritization of cracking down on ransomware schemes,” the report reads.

Survey Confirms Credit Card Trouble

In addition to the IPTV mystery shopping results, DCA also commissioned a survey among 2,330 Americans which found that roughly one in three admits to consuming pirated content at least once over the past year. Of these self-proclaimed pirates, 10% paid for a subscription.

The survey results suggest that those who visited pirate sites are at least four times more likely to experience identity theft or issues with malware. While there might be other factors at play that can partly explain this difference – such as the frequency of Internet use – the report suggests a connection to piracy.

Adding to the credit card fraud angle, the survey also found that 72 percent of those who used a credit card to pay for an IPTV subscription experienced a credit card breach. Of those who never visit pirate sites, 18 percent reported similar issues.

—

A copy of the DCA report titled Giving Piracy Operators Credit is available here (pdf)

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

The World Cup only takes place every four years so when the opportunity to see the world’s best players arrived again last year, an estimated 1.5 billion eventually tuned in to see the elite square off in the final.

Millions cheered on the French national team as the defending champions pursued glory against Argentina. After the French lost in a dramatic penalty shoot-out, for some it became a tournament to forget. For French telecoms regulator Arcom, the end of the competition signaled the start of research to determine how citizens consumed World Cup 2022 and how France benefited from it financially.

World Cup 2022 – Audiovisual Broadcasting Review

Published this week, Arcom’s study reveals that more than six out of 10 French people watched or listened to at least one live match during the World Cup, a figure that rose to 73% in respect of all content, including replays, match analysis, and behind-the-scenes reporting.

Of those who watched live matches, 90% did so from home, with television the medium of choice for 96% of respondents. Around one in five football fans watched at least one match on a smartphone, with 14% and 7% viewing on computers and tablets, respectively.

Most Fans Watched Matches for Free

Football is traditionally seen as a sport of the people, with national teams serving their countries and citizens rather than their usual corporate paymasters. For these and similar reasons, some countries have laws or regulations in place that prevent the whole of the World Cup from being locked away behind TV subscription packages.

In France, all matches played by the national team must be broadcast on a widely accessible system, at no charge to the public. The same applies to the opening match, semi-finals, and the final, regardless of which teams are playing.

Free TV broadcaster TF1 won the rights to air these games in 2022 and, as a result, 87% of those who watched live World Cup matches did so on TF1, legally and for free.

Paywalls Guarantee Piracy

Of the 64 matches played in the tournament, 36 matches were broadcast exclusively by beIN Sports. Since users of beIN must have a subscription, piracy of World Cup matches was effectively guaranteed when more than half the matches in the tournament were placed behind a paywall.

According to the study, 18% of live match consumers said they’d watched matches using a paid service. Of all live match consumers, 8% reported watching games using illegal platforms, with 5% using live sports streaming platforms or pirate IPTV applications, and 4% using social media, a figure roughly on par with illicit consumption during the rest of the year.

The conundrum for Arcom is that if it decided to crack down on the most prolific football pirates by demographic, it would also be cracking down on the fans most likely to spend money on legal content.

“The 15-34 age group, the leading group of illegal users (12%), are also the most inclined to use a pay option (26%),” Arcom reports.

Numerous studies have drawn similar conclusions over the years after finding links between the most engaged consumers and their consumption of content from both legal and illegal sources. A report from the EU last week found that 60% of pirates also buy content legally.

Paywalls = Profit

In the short term, the answer may lie in site-blocking measures. During the World Cup alone, France ordered the blocking of 83 domains in connection with football piracy.

Arcom hasn’t indicated if that had any effect on piracy levels but a small observation might be that if half the games weren’t behind a paywall, site blocking wouldn’t even be necessary. The flip side is that 15% of people who watched live matches took out paid subscriptions to do so and beIN Sports did very nicely out of that.

“Entirely dedicated to the 2022 World Cup, with daily coverage from 10 a.m. to midnight and all matches broadcast live, beIN Sports 1 benefited strongly from the competition from an advertising point of view. Total gross daily investment for the channel on match broadcast days amounted to around 16.1 million euros,” Arcom reports.

Arcom’s report can be found here ( 1 , 2 , pdf)

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

The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has published the findings of its 2023 study on ‘European Citizens and Intellectual Property: Perception, Awareness and Behavior.’

The study aims to gain a better understanding of European consumers’ attitudes toward intellectual property and covers physical counterfeit goods and online digital content; our focus here will be on the latter.

Most Europeans Oppose Use of Illegal Content Sources

Given the entertainment industries’ regular and urgent calls to tackle online piracy, the EUIPO study paints a more positive picture in respect of attitudes towards illegal content.

“In general, most Europeans do not support obtaining digital content from illegal sources. The majority disagree with a variety of reasons that are sometimes used to justify this behavior, such as that it is OK if only for personal use (65 % disagree or tend to disagree with this), if the price of the content is too high (72 %), or if the content is not available via a legal source (74 %),” the report notes.

In line with most, if not all, studies in recent years, acceptance of piracy decreases with age. While 19% of citizens aged 55-64, and 18% of those aged 65 and over, believe that its acceptable to access content via illegal sources if the price is too high, acceptance rates jump to 41% and 46% in the 25-34 and 15-24 groups, respectively.

Piracy acceptance rates are also higher in the younger age groups when content isn’t available from legal sources, reaching 44% among 15 to 24-year-olds. However, the majority of Europeans (80%) say that they prefer to obtain content from legal sources, if an affordable legal option is available.

In that respect, a surprising 69% of respondents consider the quality and range of content to be better than that currently available from illegal platforms.

14% of EU Citizens Pirate, But Not Exclusively

The study found that 43% of Europeans paid to access online content from a legal service in the past 12 months. Just 14% admitted to having used illegal sources during the same period but these aren’t all hardcore pirates. Of this group, six in every 10 citizens (60%) also purchased content from legal sources, leaving a small minority overall who only consume content from illegal sources.

Among those who used exclusively legal sources, the main reason cited for not using illegal sources is that the content they want is available on legal platforms (44%), with 40% stating that they prefer not to use illegal platforms because of the harm this could cause to content creators.

Avoidance due to perceived dangers of pirate sites affecting either themselves or someone else was relatively low, 13% and 19%, respectively. Fear of being caught and/or fined was higher at 24%.

Overall, 82% of those surveyed agreed that obtaining content illegally carries a risk of exposure to some kind of harmful content, such as scams or content inappropriate for minors. This belief is held more among those who don’t access content online (85%) than those who do (75%).

Sports Content Popular With Pirates

While 14% of Europeans report that they accessed content from illegal sources in the previous 12 months, one type of content proved to be the biggest draw.

Sports content was obtained from illegal sources by 12% of Europeans, with 11% saying that they used a set-top box or downloaded apps. Once again, the younger the pirate, the more likely they are to access content illegally.

“Accessing content from illegal sources is considerably more common than average among younger Europeans. In the 15-24 age group, 33 % report using illegal online sources intentionally, 27 % say they have streamed content from illegal sources to watch sports, and 25 % say that they have used illicit streaming devices to access content illegally – all more than double the EU average,” the study notes.

Where Europeans Access Illegal Content

Just over four in ten Europeans (43%) who access content illegally online say they do so via dedicated websites. Roughly a third (32%) say they acquire content using social media with just under a quarter mentioning apps (23%). Peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent and dedicated IPTV services are used less often.

“There are no marked differences between age groups or Member States when it comes to preferred channels,” the study notes.

Uploading, Sharing, Providing Content to Others

In light of the 14% of Europeans who accessed content from unlicensed sources in the preceding 12 months, that 11% overall uploaded/shared content with others seems relatively high.

In common with those who download or stream from illegal platforms, uploading is much more common among younger people. The researchers note that in the 15-24 and 25-34 groups, 25% and 21% uploaded/shared content in the preceding 12 months, a figure that drops to less than 10% among those aged 44 and above.

“There is a very strong correlation between accessing content illegally and making protected content illegally accessible by uploading it: 42 % of those who have also accessed online content from illegal sources have also uploaded protected content, while only 6 % of those who have not accessed content illegally have uploaded protected content,” the researchers add.

Justifications & Reasons to Stop Pirating Content

According to the study, those who access content online using illegal sources are more likely to believe that there are reasons to justify this behavior than those who do not. Leading justifications for accessing content illegally include ‘personal use’ (71%), legal content being too expensive (68%), and the content being unavailable on a legal service already purchased (65%).

“The impact of price and availability of offers is mirrored in the fact that a better affordability of content from legal sources and a larger offer of such are the most important reasons that users of illegal sources would stop using them (for 43 % and 37 % of Europeans, respectively),” the researchers note.

“A better understanding of the harm caused by using pirated content to the content producers or to jobs and the European economy (22 % and 21 %, respectively) are much less likely to keep people from using illegal sources.”

The full report is available here here (pdf)

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

Studying can be a costly endeavor. Aside from the party budget, there are books and tuition fees to pay as well.

To reduce costs, some students choose to share books or buy cheaper second-hand versions. Others go a step further and venture onto the dark side, by downloading or even buying ‘pirated’ books.

These cost-saving tactics are nothing new. A few decades ago, copying machines at universities were already duplicating copyrighted works every day of the week. However, with digital books becoming more common, copying has become a breeze. This is a form of progress that publishers are not happy with.

Danish Deterrent?

Textbook piracy is happening around the globe. While enforcement is relatively rare, in Denmark several students have been convicted for selling pirated copies of textbooks. Publishers hoped that these cases would act as a deterrent but there are no signs that this is the case.

Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance recently published a new study , conducted by Epinion, which polled the attitudes and behaviors of students towards digital textbooks. In particular, those that are obtained illegally.

There have been several of these surveys over the years, which makes it possible to see how patterns change over time. In this case, things aren’t trending in the right direction. Despite lawsuits and public calls to avoid piracy, students continue to obtain unlicensed books from various sources.

50% Obtain Textbook Illegally

Of all the students that used digital textbooks (84%), half admit to having used at least some ‘pirated’ copies. This number has been relatively stable since 2020 and doesn’t seem to be impacted by recent prosecutions and fines handed out by the courts.

This relatively high percentage doesn’t mean that students are oblivious to the law; 70% admit to knowing that piracy is illegal.

How many books are obtained illegally can differ quite a bit. For some, it’s just a book or two, but one in four of the ‘pirating’ students acquire more than half of all textbooks through unofficial sources. And 7% of these students obtain between 91% and 100% of their books illegally.

Jail Threat Doesn’t Scare Students

Rights Alliance stresses that educational institutions have a role to play. They should put more effort into educating students on the subject, an issue that’s often overlooked.

“There is a concrete need for educational institutions to be sharper in their communication to students in this area,” says Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund.

“When management, teachers and tutors on the programs distance themselves from illegal sharing of study books, it has a concrete effect on the social norms within the programs,” she adds.

The question is whether this will make a massive difference. The majority of the survey respondents were already aware of the illegal nature of book ‘piracy’ but continue anyway. Apparently it goes a long way towards saving costs.

This is also reflected in the research, which found that only 18% would consider reducing their illegal textbook habits if they risked jail time. In addition, a lack of support from one’s social circle would only motivate 11% to reconsider.

It’s All About the Money

There is one key element that would sway students to go legal and that is price. The survey found that roughly half of the pirating students would purchase books if prices were significantly reduced.

To convince the majority of this group to change their behavior, prices should be at least 50% cheaper than they are now. This is probably not the solution publishers are looking for, however.

In addition to slashing prices, better access to digital books through official libraries is also mentioned as a solution by many students. Again, this is another way to reduce costs.

All in all the research shows that it will be hard to stop textbook piracy as long as the legal alternatives are considered unaffordable. Prosecuting more people and launching awareness campaigns may convince some to change their habits but, for the majority, it’s all about the money.

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

Mediavision has been tracking citizens’ piracy habits across the Nordic countries since 2010. The company’s annual report for Spring 2023, based on a survey conducted in March, has just been released.

With Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway under the spotlight once again, Mediavision’s pan-Nordic consumer survey aims to measure unlicensed content consumption among 15 to 74-year-old respondents, across categories including movies and TV shows, and access to both via pirate IPTV services.

Overall Piracy Rates Increase

With no obviously positive news to distract, poor figures across all four countries take center stage.

Denmark, a country with an overall movie and TV show piracy rate of 11% in 2014, now has an overall rate of 20%, up from the 13% reported in Mediavision’s survey in 2022.

With an overall rate of just 8% in 2014, increases over the years led to a 13% overall rate for Finland in 2022. A four point rise over the past 12 months pushes Finland’s overall movie and TV show piracy rate to 17%.

Since 2014, overall unlicensed consumption of movies and TV shows, in both Norway and Sweden, adopted a broadly U-shaped curve. With reducing piracy rates indicating signs of progress in the middle, high rates of piracy seen in 2014 are back on display in 2022, and then some.

Overall movie and TV show piracy rates for Norway now stand at 22% versus 18% last year, with Sweden at 25% and 20% respectively. Mediavision reports that in all four countries, the usual suspects are driving the increases.

Young People Push Up Piracy

Technologically adept and hungry for content, young people often make a disproportionate contribution to piracy rates. Through various programs, rightsholders have reached out to kids of all ages, hoping to encourage negative attitudes towards piracy from an early stage.

From kindergarten copyright classes in the United States, to a current project in Denmark that will pay teens to assist with piracy research, most things have been tried.

Mediavision’s latest study reveals that piracy increases are being driven by young people in the 15 to 24-year-old group, across all four countries. The concern for rightsholders lies in piracy’s monthly reach, which was unacceptably high last year and is now considerably worse.

According to last year’s report, 29% of young Danes engaged in movie and/or TV show piracy. The latest figures show a leap to 46%, a figure that puts Denmark on equal footing with Finland, where rates rose to 46% from the 27% reported last year.

Norway’s increase, from 38% last year to 51% this year, is slightly less steep, leaving Sweden with the surprise upper hand.

The eight percentage point increase attributed to young Swedes in this year’s survey is less than any of its regional neighbours. Unfortunately, Sweden’s last set of results in 2022 indicated that 45% of its young people engaged with piracy, a figure that has now risen to 53%. That suggests that every second young person in Sweden today is a pirate

Access to Pirate IPTV Services

Mediavision’s Spring 2022 survey found that across Sweden, Denmark, Finland & Norway, just under 0.9 million households subscribed to an illegal IPTV service.

With the largest population, Sweden accounted for more than 40% (380,000) of IPTV-equipped households across the region. With 230,000 subscribed homes, Norway was runner-up, with Finland (155,000) and Denmark (125,000) taking the remaining spots. Taking population into account, Norway’s 10% share beat Sweden’s 9% into second place.

Following the release of these figures last year, entertainment companies warned that use of pirate IPTV services was on the increase in the Nordic region. According to the latest survey, the prediction was spot on.

The latest figure of 1,150,000 households represents a 29% increase over the 890,000 households reported in 2022. With 490,000 and 255,000 households respectively, Sweden and Norway are the leading consumers of IPTV by volume, pushing Denmark (220,000) and Finland (190,000) into third and fourth place. By share, Sweden and Norway tie with 11% each, leaving Denmark (9%) and Finland (7%) to complete the set.

And Now The Good News

In contrast to the gloomy picture painted by the latest survey, other recent reports published by Mediavision signal positive trends in legal content consumption.

“Online video in Finland is on the rise. During this spring, subscribing SVOD households have passed 1.5 million, corresponding to a penetration of 61 percent. This equals an annual growth of 8 percent in subscribing households,” the company notes .

In Sweden, where piracy habits are on the rise, legal consumption is going in the same direction.

“Today, over 90 percent of households in Sweden pay for some form of media subscription,” another Mediavision report begins. Despite rising interest rates, inflation and increased financial anxiety, there is no sign of a slowdown in paid media.

“On the contrary, Mediavision’s latest analysis measures a new record level for households’ total media expenditure. Households pay the most for TV and streaming subscriptions,” Mediavision reports .

Denmark’s situation also appears less gloomy than its piracy rates suggest. After adding half a million in 2022, there are now over four million paid VOD subscriptions in Denmark, from a total population of less than six million.

Mediavision also notes that around three million subscriptions in the Nordics are shared accounts, paid for by the subscriber but enjoyed for free by others. With further sharing crackdowns looming on the horizon, the question is whether legal platforms or pirate sites stand to reap the most benefits.

Mediavision’s Nordic Piracy Report 2023 is available from TTVK ( pdf )

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

Piracy is by no means exclusive to any particular generation but among the general public, it’s often associated with younger people.

This notion may very well change over time as the Internet-native generation gets older. That said, younger people tend to be more open to change, also when it comes to piracy habits.

Over the past two decades, new online piracy sites, apps and other consumption methods have emerged. This can pose quite a challenge for anti-piracy outfits, whose main goal is to spot new piracy trends and nip them in the bud.

Social Media Piracy Panel

To help with this ongoing process, Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance plans to involve youth directly. This week, a job listing appeared online offering teens an hourly wage of 150 Danish kroner (~US$22) to join a piracy discussion panel.

“We want to know more about young people’s ways of being and behaving on social media – and online in general. With your help, we will become much wiser about young people’s behavior and will be able to reach new heights in our work.”

Rights Alliance is specifically looking for young people between the ages of 15 and 17. These teens will join a panel of eight peers who, together with an employee from the anti-piracy group, will discuss piracy-related Internet and social media developments.

Friends and Family are Safe

There’s no need for prospective candidates to be deeply involved in illegal activities or to expose pirating friends. The main goal is to learn how young people are exposed to pirated media during their online activities, which can help to spot emerging threats.

“It is important for us to emphasize that you should not disclose yourself, your friends or others in your social circle. The sole purpose is to help us learn more about current trends,” Rights Alliance clarifies.

According to the job listing , each panel meeting will last for roughly two hours with three tentatively scheduled for the coming year. The meetings will take place in Copenhagen and travel expenses will be covered.

While it’s unusual for anti-piracy organizations to recruit teenagers, it makes a lot of sense. Piracy preferences change rapidly and obtaining direct input from younger people is a relatively effective way to keep an eye on new developments.

Preventing Bad Habits

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund says that the panel should help to provide more insight into the habits and behavior of today’s youth on social media.

“We are especially looking into how we can educate and perhaps prevent young people from forming bad habits with regard to consuming illegal content like live football, films, etcetera, on social media platforms,” Fredenslund notes.

Online piracy remains a major challenge in Denmark. Last year, an annual survey carried out by Mediavision revealed that movie and TV piracy had reached the highest level in nine years . According to the same research, YouTube and Facebook were cited as the most used piracy sources, but it’s likely they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

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.

Early 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.

These academic studies originated at Carnegie Mellon University. They were conducted independently but the research received sizable gifts from the Motion Picture Association. The movie industry group often cites these results to show that site blocking is effective.

New Blocking Study Adds Nuance

The two blocking papers and their results are founded on quality research, but they’re not without limitations. One shortcoming is that they are based on UK data that may differ from how blocking measures affect piracy and legal consumption in other parts of the world.

A recently released study can partly fill this gap. It was conducted by researchers from the Catolica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics in Portugal, in collaboration with a colleague who, again, is affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University.

Instead of looking at UK data, the researchers analyzed data from a country where a voluntary pirate site blocking scheme was introduced at some point.

The target country isn’t mentioned but considering that the researchers are Portuguese, paired with the fact that Portugal is one of the few countries which has a voluntary blocking scheme , we can take an informed guess.

Tracking Internet, TV, and Spending Habits

Similar to the UK research, the new study uses a natural experiment, namely, the introduction of ISP blocking efforts. The researchers relied on survey data and received help from a telco provider who provided anonymous data on a random sample of 100k subscribers.

These data can differentiate BitTorrent users from the general sample and includes other metrics such as upload and download traffic, paid VoD expenses, aggregate TV viewership time, as well as daily BitTorrent use.

This treasure trove of data resulted in an article of which a preprint copy was published recently. The writeup has yet to be peer-reviewed but the results are interesting enough to warrant an early inspection.

Less Traffic

One of the main and most unique findings is that blocking measures have a clear effect on the Internet traffic generated by BitTorrent users. Both upload and download usage decreased significantly for (former) BitTorrent users, without a noticeable rebound over time.

This finding is backed up by an overall drop in the percentage of households that used BitTorrent, which clearly declined and continued to do so in the months after the blockades were implemented. All in all, this suggests that piracy has decreased as well.

“Our results show that blocking access to copyright infringing websites reduces Internet traffic, which proxies piracy activity,” the researchers write.

Interestingly, the drop in upload and download traffic is asymmetric, with a relatively larger decrease in upload traffic. The researchers suggest that this could potentially mean that some BitTorrent users switched to streaming piracy, which doesn’t require uploading, or to legal streaming services that were not measured.

VPN Searches Spiked

The data sample also covered search activity, which was sourced from Google trends. The researchers specifically examined the terms “proxy”, “VPN”, and “DNS” which all spiked when the blocking measures were implemented.

We have seen similar patterns in other countries where site-blocking measures first appeared. This would suggest that people were trying to find ways to circumvent the blockades.

After a few months, search activity returns to normal levels, but by then, most persistent pirates will have figured out how to access the blocked sites.

“These figures suggest that although website blocking seems to have been effective in leading some households away from piracy, some users learnt how to circumvent the DNS blocks and likely continued downloading content from the blocked websites,” the researchers note.

No Boost in Legal Alternatives

Ideally, pirate site blocks should positively impact legal consumption. For example, people could use VoD services more, show interest in paid TV channels, and increase regular TV viewing.

However, when comparing the legal use of BitTorrent users before and after the widespread blocking measures, the researchers found little effect.

“We found no statistically significant changes in the consumption of the paid legal alternatives considered, only a very modest increase in TV viewership. These results suggest that the website blocks were effective in curbing digital piracy but did not benefit offline legal alternatives.”

The referenced modest effect translates to a 2.5-minute increase in total TV time for these pirates and a 1.8-minute boost in viewership for channels dedicated to movies and TV shows.

Limitations

These results show that site blocking impacts Internet traffic and presumably piracy too. However, a boost in legal activity is not guaranteed. There are some important caveats to this overall conclusion, however.

One drawback is that legal movie and TV streaming alternatives in the researched country were rather underdeveloped at the time. The availability and use of services such as Netflix was limited, for example.

This means that the results may have been different in a country with more legal options. And in general, the researchers note that results in one region, can’t always be generalized to other countries.

In addition, the findings are limited to mostly BitTorrent piracy. They don’t show how usage of other pirate options, such as streaming sites and IPTV may have changed.

All in all, however, we can say that the study adds some very welcome extra insight into the effectiveness of pirate site blockades.

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A copy of the preprint publication titled ‘Controlling Digital Piracy Via Domain Name System Blocks: A Natural Experiment’, is available on SSRN .

_{Reis, Filipa and Godinho de Matos, Miguel and Ferreira, Pedro, Controlling Digital Piracy Via Domain Name System Blocks: A Natural Experiment. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4335662}

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