Film Piracy Has Been Skyrocketing As People Stay Home

Rosa Escandon
April 27, 2020

People have been craving online content while quarantined due to coronavirus concerns and many have turned to online piracy, one study shows. Digital piracy analysts at the London-based Muso released a report Monday which shows a more than 40 percent jump in traffic on pirate sites following the stay-at-home orders issued in the U.S. and U.K.

The data focuses on illegal steaming and downloading sites for films. The use of these sites has been up 41.4 percent in the United States and by 42.5 percent in the U.K. in the last seven days of March, compared with the last seven days of February. Pirate site usage has been up in other European nations as well, such as 66 percent in Italy, 50.4 percent in Spain and 35.5 percent in Germany, Muso reports. The uptick in piracy roughly corresponds to when the lockdown orders were given by each country.

Muso said of the “unprecedented increase” that “as more countries enforced lockdown and required citizens to self-isolate, demand for content via piracy grew exponentially.” The demand for entertainment has not only increased privacy but it has also driven users to legitimate services. Netflix added over 15 million subscribers worldwide since January. Disney+ has also seen a surge in subscribers.

“Piracy or unlicensed consumption trends are closely linked to paid-for or licensed content,” says Andy Chatterley, CEO of Muso. “So, just as Netflix has seen large subscriber gains, we have seen a significant spike in visits to film piracy sites.”

In every country surveyed visits to TV piracy sites were higher than those of film piracy sites. However, TV piracy sites did not see the jump in usage that film sites did.

With sports seasons and other live TV canceled, movie releases delayed, and theaters closed, demand for entertainment even pirated entertainment, seems to be here to stay as long as people need to stay inside.

This article was first published here.