AMSTERDAM – Three-quarters of American consumers age 18 or older believe producing or sharing pirated video content is illegal, and 69 percent believe streaming or downloading pirated content is illegal. Nevertheless, 32 percent admit watching content they know has been pirated, according to a new survey performed online by YouGov on behalf of security platform Irdeto.
The survey also discovered that when told pirated video content can result in studios losing money, meaning they cannot invest in creating new content, 39 percent of consumers said they didn’t care. Only 19 percent of respondents said financial damage to content producers would influence them to stop watching pirated material.
Data from digital market intelligence firm SimilarWeb indicated that in December 2016, 2.7 million advertisements for illicit streaming devices appeared on prominent e-commerce platforms including Amazon, eBay and Alibaba. The advertisements also appeared on social media channels including Facebook and Twitter. Globally, the ads funneled more than 16.46 million visits to the top 100 pirate IPTV suppliers’ websites. Of those, 3.7 million visits arose in the U.S.; one million arose in the U.K.
Although no one has exact figures for pirated adult entertainment content — much less the number of constantly shifting sites that broadcast or offer downloads of pirated material — it can be assumed the numbers at least approximate Irdeto’s figures for the mainstream. Percentages of watchers, and especially unrepentant pirated video watchers, may be much larger due to the nature of the material and societal attitudes about pornography. According to Takedown Piracy’s Nate Glass, even live streams — once considered safe from copyright infringement — are no longer inviolable.
“If you’re working as a cam model, the likelihood of your show being screen-capped and recorded is virtually 100 percent,” he told YNOT Cam. “There are people out there with scripts that simply record everything they can from any given cam site. This could even be as benign as non-nude performances where the model is just sitting there. These scripts don’t make any distinction between nude or hardcore sessions and a tease session. To these guys, every bit of video is a product they can sell at your expense.”
While mainstream and adult entertainment statistics may not match, piracy causes the same damage in both arenas.
“The negative impact that piracy has on the content creation industry extends much further than lost revenue,” said Lawrence Low, vice president of business development and sales for Irdeto. “Piracy deters content creators from investing in new content, impacting the creative process and providing consumers with less choice. It is becoming increasingly important to educate consumers on the tactics employed by pirates and to further promote innovative offerings that allow consumers to legally acquire content.”
