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New research published by the European Union Intellectual Property Office shows that, despite the pandemic, visits to hacking sites continue to decline. This trend is visible for movies, TV shows and music, with the latter showing the steepest drop. Income level and inequality appear to be the main drivers of piracy, but there is also an important caveat.
The Intellectual Property Office of the European Union (EUIPO) regularly conducts studies to see how piracy evolves over time.
These studies help the public understand local piracy trends and can be used as information for future policy decisions.
This week, the EUIPO published the latest version of the annual report online copyright infringement report. The study analyzes the period between 2017 and 2020, which includes the start of the Covid pandemic, where piracy allegedly increased.
Some copyright holders feared that this piracy boom would have lasting effects. However, this fear may be unjustified, as visits from the EU to pirated sites are less and less frequent.
EUIPO's investigation is largely based on data from the MUSO piracy tracking. Traces piracy consumption patterns across all EU member states and the UK. This data includes visits to unauthorized movie, TV and music sites.
Going down
One of the main findings of the latest study is that traffic to pirated sites continues to decline across the board. This is calculated based on the average number of monthly visits per Internet user.
The graph below shows that piracy figures were roughly halved between 2017 and 2020. This trend is visible for all content categories and is most pronounced for music, which declined by more than 80% during this period. of time.
These data also reveal that television piracy is by far the most common. This could be partly due to the recurring nature of television shows. At the end of 2020, approximately 70% of all visits to pirated sites were related to television. The movie and music categories are valid for 20% and 10% respectively.
COVID Boom?
When the pandemic started, we saw a increased piracy. However, that effect was not permanent. The EU report confirms our previous findings that the COVID hacking push was transient.
As shown above, there was an increase in piracy during the first weeks of the pandemic. However, this effect was limited to television content and the downward trend continued at the end of the year.
Streaming is king
Another trend that continues is the shift to streaming sites. The days when torrent and direct download sites dominated the piracy landscape are a decade behind us. Streaming is now good for more than 80% of all piracy in the EU.
However, there are regional differences in the use of piracy sources. In Estonia, Hungary, Malta, Portugal, and Slovenia, torrent sites still receive more traffic than streaming sites. In Germany, on the other hand, only a small fraction of all hackers are using torrents.
Piracy rates are also not the same across the EU. As shown below, piracy is most prevalent in Greece, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. On the other side of the spectrum, we find Poland and Germany.
Income and availability
There are many factors that help explain these differences. EU researchers examined some of these and were able to draw some interesting conclusions.
The income level of a country has a significant impact on piracy rates. Low per capita income and a high degree of income inequality are associated with increased consumption of pirated content.
โAmong socioeconomic factors, the level of income per capita and the degree of inequality seem to have the greatest impact on the consumption of pirated content: high per capita income and a low degree of income inequality are associated with lower levels of consumption. illicit โ, Find the report.
Another factor that explains regional differences is the availability of legal options and people's awareness of them. Greater legal availability and awareness helps decrease piracy, the researchers found.
An Oulier and a big warning
The EU report helps to understand how piracy develops over time. Most of the trends continue in the same direction, but we also spotted an outlier worth mentioning.
In recent years, the proportion of mobile hacking traffic "caught up" with desktop traffic. However, towards the end of 2020, desktop computer traffic drifted away again. The study doesn't explain this, but it may be due in part to the fact that most people work behind a desk at home during the pandemic.
There is also an important caveat as the investigation is limited to pirated sites. The researchers acknowledge this as they mention that live sports streaming is not included, but the gap is wider than that.
The study really only covers part of the bigger piracy picture. The focus on web traffic means that IPTV apps, streaming devices, and services are also not included. Maybe that's where some mobile device users are heading?
This warning may also shed a different light on the decline in piracy, as these untracked piracy channels have exploded in recent years. According to some, these streaming tools are the biggest hacking threat right now.
As such, overall piracy levels may not have dropped, or even increased.
