Oh no, back to haunt youโฆ.. the thorny subject of piracy keeps rearing its ugly head again. Attracting and retaining viewers, increasing market share, keeping all those digital plates spinning, lowering TCO โ if you are running a streaming service, there are any number of other pressing priorities. And surely it should be job done tackling streaming piracy provided basic security provisions and contractual obligations are in place, right?
You must be joking. Streaming pirates are not only stealing content but stealing entire streaming services including hosting super aggregated rival services of their own and, as our latest research conducted by Ampere Analysis reveals, they are laughing all the way to the bank as they spirit away over $30 billion rightfully belonging to video service providers.
Investigating the financial impact of sport, movie and TV piracy on the entertainment and subscription TV business across Brazil, Germany, India, Italy, Thailand, UK and US, the latest Ampere research finds the value of entertainment piracy is three times bigger than sports piracy. And who would have thought that comedy is the most pirated genre of entertainment?
Driven by titles including Ghostbusters: Afterlife, it was surprising to find that half of all consumers of pirated content stream comedy illegally. Also popular are the action and adventure genre, and the crime and thriller category respectively. But every pirate cloud really does have a streaming silver lining. By gaining insight into how consumers would behave if piracy was blocked, based on the local availability of content and the cost of those services, streaming providers can calculate accurately how much tackling it is worth to the business and get the last laugh recouping billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Seeing right through to the detail:
Unlike other surveys on the scale of TV and video piracy that use broad-brush extrapolations to calculate how much piracy costs the industry based on the number of pirate viewers, the Ampere survey takes a targeted and nuanced approach. By analysing how consumers of illegal content would behave if piracy was blocked at every buying decision, it achieves much more accurate predictions.
Examining household demographics for each of 16,000 respondents across the seven surveyed markets and delving into what pirate consumers watch โ including specific entertainment titles in US โ the research uncovers what consumers of pirated content would do if they could no longer access illegal streams, and how many would buy services legally based on the availability and cost of specific content in their local market.
So, instead of simply counting the cost of piracy for all users, the survey drills down to uncover the true convertible value if piracy stopped. For example, our sample of 4,000 US users found that 3,211 pirated content, 2,057 pirated sport, and 3,164 movie and entertainment. Of these, 597 watching pirated sport said they would be prepared to pay legally, with 1,631 illegally watching movies and entertainment willing to do the same.
As well as the immediate revenue derived from a new subscription to a service or channel, the research also takes into account the customer value over years using accurate churn information.
Ghost in the machine:
Piracy is not a new phenomenon but the shift to streaming technology, which was never designed with security top of mind, means it is now incredibly easy for pirates to exploit streaming delivery technology loopholes to steal, aggregate, sell and deliver content illegally. By stealing content directly from a legitimate providerโs CDN, streaming pirates are adding insult to injury by having the legal service provider foot the bill to deliver the pirated content to the pirate viewer.
Materialising in the shady depths of cybercrime, the escalation in the scale of piracy has been voiced by the likes of beIN against beoutQ. Just as organizations are proactively protecting their systems against malware, ransomware and other hacks, video operators and content owners need to work on the assumption that their technology will be compromised.
The positive flipside to the piracy coin:
Stopping revenue leakage isnโt the most glamorous of streaming business priorities. It involves a multifaceted and holistic approach ranging from proactive and protective securities such as headend watermarking to track the content across the distribution chain and optimising CDN security, through to human operational intelligence teams with eagle expert eyes and ears on the ground to track and disrupt pirate hackers.
And it requires collaboration across the industry, including working with legislators and law enforcement authorities to gather the evidence required to orchestrate technical and legal takedowns. But by taking effective action against these TV and video pirates, streaming providers have a golden opportunity to profit from revenue that is rightfully theirs and lay the ghost of piracy to rest.
More about Synamedia & HPE OEM Solutions at NAB 2023:
2023 marked the 100th anniversary of the NAB Show, and as expected, the event was bigger and better than ever. HPE OEM Solutions was a part of the show, while a centrepiece of the booth was Synamediaโs in-stadium experience. Want to learn more about it? Click here
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Nabanita Maji
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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