Piracy is "more popular than ever" suggests report

[HEXUS]

Tracking company MUSO recorded >300bn copyright infringing site visits in 2017.

Read more.

[Ttaskmaster]

MUSO's CEO reckons that content industries should consider the trends seen in its data and act to monetise the vast audience that still feels paid-for-options aren't good enough.

Or that the content they're actually asking money for isn't worth the paper it's printed on to begin with.... !!

[shaithis]

Well, once big corporations like Sky started to make people pay for content they don't want to watch, to cover the costs of silly license deals.....and then shows and sport got fragmented so that you need to subscribe to multiple premium sites......all against the backdrop of austerity.....piracy went up? Who'd have thunk it?

[Corky34]

I would have thought it difficult to get accurate stats for file sharing what with VPNs, proxies, people using lesser know sites, and probably a whole host of other things.

[LSG501]

What a shocking report...a company that was founded to track piracy and as such makes it's money by tracking said piracy says piracy is even more popular...

The odds of piracy going down is pretty slim in all honesty until the media companies come to the realisation that people don't like drm, geo blocking (netflix for example has tonnes more stuff we can't see in the UK but can in the US), delays depending on where you are in the world (ie being shown a day plus later so twitter etc has ruined it for us), time restrictions on how long it's available for or streaming service exclusivity so we need to sign up, sometimes to multiple services, just to get access to that 'one show' we want to watch.


And maybe it's me but I kind of prefer to 'own' stuff rather than pay to be allowed to access a stream of something that can be removed at any moment in time if the streaming service doesn't want to keep paying to show it.

[3dcandy]

Doesn't take into account android streaming boxes. Nearly everyone techy I know has one these days

[rob4001]

What a shocking report...a company that was founded to track piracy and as such makes it's money by tracking said piracy says piracy is even more popular...

The odds of piracy going down is pretty slim in all honesty until the media companies come to the realisation that people don't like drm, geo blocking (netflix for example has tonnes more stuff we can't see in the UK but can in the US), delays depending on where you are in the world (ie being shown a day plus later so twitter etc has ruined it for us), time restrictions on how long it's available for or streaming service exclusivity so we need to sign up, sometimes to multiple services, just to get access to that 'one show' we want to watch.


And maybe it's me but I kind of prefer to 'own' stuff rather than pay to be allowed to access a stream of something that can be removed at any moment in time if the streaming service doesn't want to keep paying to show it.

You can thank sky for the netflix and other content geo restrictions due to there current uk deals in place.

[LSG501]

You can thank sky for the netflix and other content geo restrictions due to there current uk deals in place.

Yeah but even sky can have a delay of a day on stuff shown via satellite let alone streaming.

[ik9000]

I appreciate this majors on TV, but how many of those visits to pirate sites are people who own games/software suddenly finding they can't install them on win10 due to lack of safedisc and secdrv drivers etc, and looking for a way to be able to play the games/run the software they own? I'd be kicking myself if I was one of those folk who traded in their win7 licence just to find a glut of their software is neutered, and the modern versions are annual rolling subscriptions only. Cheeky. Very cheeky.

[Spud1]

It's a shame that whenever this sort of story comes out (or piracy in general I guess) so many people blame the content creators for charging too much or for geo-fencing content, rather than themselves for breaking the law and depriving the content creators of their income (which itself drives higher prices and obstructions to purchase like DRM). It ends up being a vicious circle which ultimatley just pushes the prices up and up.

No one blames a shop for setting their prices too high when someone steals a physical item from that shop, so why is it different with digital piracy? Granted it's not technically theft as you are only depriving the content creator of money for the potential purchase, rather than a physical item..but it's an equivalent crime imo (especially given how with most physical theft insurance covers the loss anyway - not so with digital). Piracy does hurt real people too and directly takes money away from developers who often rely on their game sales (for example) to live.

With so many cheap ways to consume digital content now there isn't *any* excuse for piracy. It's sad that our society has normalised it so much and that it's pretty much become accepted these days

[LSG501]

I appreciate this majors on TV, but how many of those visits to pirate sites are people who own games/software suddenly finding they can't install them on win10 due to lack of safedisc and secdrv drivers etc, and looking for a way to be able to play the games/run the software they own? I'd be kicking myself if I was one of those folk who traded in their win7 licence just to find a glut of their software is neutered, and the modern versions are annual rolling subscriptions only. Cheeky. Very cheeky.

I've not done this with windows 10, hardly other with games now, but I have cracked a game in the past purely because it needed the disc in the drive every time I wanted to play it just to check for the drm. I'd bought the game and I just couldn't be bothered with sticking the disc in EVERY time I wanted to play it so off I went and got a crack. Now technically I'd fall under the 'piracy' numbers some would likely be accounting for but I'm not actually pirating anything, I was just removing the drm lol. Funnily enough once the crack was applied it ran a bit smoother too...

[aidanjt]

...so many people blame the content creators for charging too much or for geo-fencing content

But... They do do that. If you have no 'legal' option, the only other options are a) piracy, or b) do without. Sure you could do without, but if they're not even in the market to take your money off your hands, where's the actual ethical dilemma? There is none.

No one blames a shop for setting their prices too high when someone steals a physical item from that shop

Sure. But since piracy isn't theft, that isn't a valid analogy.

Piracy does hurt real people too and directly takes money away from developers

Yes, pirates are literally reaching into developers pockets and taking their money away from them. /s

And frankly, content creators just have to recognise the fact that the internet does exists, and that they do have to compete with free unfettered access to their content. They're just not doing it. They still think and act like it's still the good old CD/DVD/dial-up/Blockbuster/Xtra-vision era, and they do have to take responsibility for that failure to adapt to changing consumer demands.

[Spud1]

I know we will never agree aidanjt we've had the exact same debate numerous times in the past 13 years I won't get back into it tonight Each to their own but I strongly disagree with each of your points of course

[LSG501]

It's a shame that whenever this sort of story comes out (or piracy in general I guess) so many people blame the content creators for charging too much or for geo-fencing content, rather than themselves for breaking the law and depriving the content creators of their income (which itself drives higher prices and obstructions to purchase like DRM). It ends up being a vicious circle which ultimatley just pushes the prices up and up.

Considering that one of the most common reasons people pirate is lack of availability in their country (ie geo-locking or geo-fencing) it's a valid reason imo. With the internet there is no region anymore, the media companies are still hanging onto an antiquated business model based around the idea that it takes months for people from say America to discuss stuff with people in the UK where it is now a few seconds.

I can give a perfect example of geo-locking a show, on crunchyroll they simulcast anime but there are some they advertise that I can't watch because it is not available in my region yet if I was in a different region I could watch it. So I've paid for access to their catalogue of shows yet I'm being artificially restricted due to the geo-locking of a show, often with no other option available to watch it either. It's not like it's coming from a different server if you're in a different country or anything.

You also have companies like disney, buying up stuff, like marvel or star wars, for their own (unnecessary) online subscription service and then removing them from existing services just so they get 'a larger slice' of the pie...which is then geo-locked to the US, so no one else can even access it...

It's also fine saying that there are many cheap ways to consume digital content but it soon adds up when you need to have multiple subscriptions just to access everything you want to watch, pretty sure I read somewhere it was about £80 a month if you wanted all the major media services allowing access to all their exclusives..

Now don't get me wrong, I work in a media industry (design) so fully understand about copyright and all the people etc behind the scene but at the same time I can also see that the media companies are severely out of touch with what the viewer wants.

[Percy1983]

I see the problem with the likes of Sky is they buy programmes/sports to be able to charge customers, they then use money from customers to buy more programmes/sports and then up the prices, then use the money to buy more programmes/sports.

In short things which could have been shown and terrestrial TV and paid for with adverts etc have been outbid and put behind a pay wall, do I want to give any money to said company so they can use it to take more content from me?

I will say most of my media consumption is legit (0% piracy on movies or games), but I am not paying for sky to watch literally one show currently.

[Shane74]

All content needs to be readily available on ALL platforms, There is half your problem solved!
Licensing deals are BS, No one wants to have to subscribe to half a dozen different companies just to watch their favorite shows.
If you are already paying $120 a month for cable tv you kind of expect to get every damn channel and tv show/movie, Shouldn't have to also subscribe to Netflix,Amazon,Stan and others just because there is that one show not on the other platform.
Before you know it you are spending hundreds a month just so you can watch what should be on any one of them.
About to ditch $120 a month Foxtel platinum here in Australia, Has become complete BS.
Nothing but adverts and repeats, new release rental movies on there have gone up as well, They dumped a few of everyone's favorite channels such as World movies, Now its just a select few movies off it.
One of the reasons I got off free to air and went for pay(cable) tv over 15 years ago was to get rid of the damn ads. Now it's no different than free to air, 5 minutes of show then 5 minutes of ads.
Better off just upgrading your home theater set up, Wait a few years until the shows are over and no one cares, Then buy them on sale on blu ray.
Get past the impatience of needing to have something or watch something now then you can have your shows for nearly nothing anyway!