March 26, 2018

MUSO’s latest report identified 300.2 billion visits to piracy websites across music, TV and film, publishing, and software. More than a third of these visits were to piracy sites hosting television content (106.9 billion): more than music (73.9 billion) and film (53.2 billion) sites. The USA topped the list as the country making the most visits to piracy sites (27.9 billion), followed by: the Russian Federation (20.6 billion); India (17 billion); Brazil (12.7 billion); Turkey (11.9 billion); Japan (10.6 billion); France (10.5 billion); Indonesia (10.4 billion); Germany (10.2 billion); and United Kingdom (9.0 billion).

Andy Chatterley, co-founder and CEO of MUSO, said: “There is a belief that the rise in popularity of on-demand services – such as Netflix and Spotify – have solved piracy, but that theory simply doesn’t stack up. Our data suggests that piracy is more popular than ever. With the data showing us that 53 per cent of all piracy happens on unlicensed streaming platforms, it has become clear that streaming is the most popular way for consumers to access content, whether it be via legitimate channels, or illegitimate ones.

“The piracy audience is huge and yet for the most part, it’s an opportunity that’s completely ignored. It’s important that the content industries embrace the trends emerging from this data, not only in strategic content protection, but also in understanding the profile of the piracy ‘consumer’ for better business insight and monetising these audiences.”

To read MUSO’s press release in full and for access to the report, click here.