Every year the UK Government publishes a new edition of its Online Copyright Infringement Tracker.

This report is the result of an annual survey that polls the piracy habits of people twelve years old and above.

Earlier this week the UK Intellectual Property Office published the tenth wave of the report. As always, there are some positive changes compared to earlier years, as well as some negative ones.

Fewer Pirates

Starting with the good news, the study finds that the overall level of copyright infringement across all content categories has dropped. In previous years this number was stuck at 25% but has now reduced to 23%. This means that nearly a quarter of the people who consumed online content have used illegal sources.

While this is a big number, the survey also shows that many of these pirates consume content legally as well. For example, 20% of all film fans occasionally pirate content, but only 3% use piracy services exclusively.

The same effect can be found in other content categories, including music consumers of which 18% used unauthorized sources last year, but only 2% did so exclusively. For games, these numbers are 10% and 2% respectively.

For the above categories, a relatively small percentage of the pirating public used illegal sources exclusively. However, that picture is the other way around for software and digital magazines, where the majority of all pirates never purchased anything legally.

Sports Piracy is Booming

Similar to last year, the highest percentage of pirates can be found among the live sports streamers. Of all the people who consumed sports streaming content last year, 37% used illegal channels. That is up from 34% last year. Roughly a third of the sports streaming pirates never used legal services.

This brings us to the motivation people have to pirate content. Here we see a familiar picture emerge as well. People pirate because something is not available or because they can’t or don’t want to pay additional costs.

Movie fans, for example, may not want to pay for yet another monthly streaming subscription to see a film. Or, the content they desire may not be legally available at all, as we have seen with some of this year’s Oscar contenders.

COVID Had a Limited Impact

Despite some small shifts in piracy levels not much has changed. There is a small decline in music, movie and TV piracy, while the proportion of sports, gaming and software pirates increased a bit.

Interestingly, the COVID pandemic doesn’t appear to have a strong or lasting effect. Some people reported that their piracy activity increased, but there aren’t necessarily more people who pirate.

“In terms of levels of infringement, the findings from the qualitative phase showed that while many reported no change in their use of illegal sources, some noted that owing to their general consumption in entertainment increasing, so too did their use of illegal sources,” the report notes.

How to Stop Pirates?

While the yearly reports help to track how piracy trends develop over time, it does little to address the problem. However, the latest report does give some advice on how to motivate pirates to ‘go legal.’

The study tested a variety of messages focused on the negative consequences of piracy, to see what would make pirates change their behavior. This leads to some interesting insights.

For example, mentioning the financial losses of big corporations or the broader economy has virtually no impact. People don’t seem to care that the revenue of major movie studios or sports organizations is impacted.

A more effective approach, according to the study, would be to focus on the financial impact piracy has on individual artists and employees who work in the creative industries. Those messages even impacted hardcore pirates, who also showed concern about their own risks, including malware and viruses.

Finally, hasher punishment could work as well, according to one of the report’s conclusions.

“There is potential to explore messages around risk of greater legal action and consequences for those who infringe – this is not currently seen as a viable threat but was mentioned by a few as a potential deterrent if enforced more widely.”

A summary of the tenth copyright infringement tracker survey is available on the UK Intellectual Property Office website .

While not mentioned, it may also make sense for the entertainment industries to change something themselves. After all, harsher publishment is not going to improve the convenience, availability, and cost of legal alternatives.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In two weeks, the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles.

The Oscars are the most prestigious film awards and millions of movie fans are looking forward to seeing what this year’s “Best Picture” will be.

Fans had to be patient as the official ceremony was delayed by a few weeks due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Oscar Piracy

That’s not the only thing that changed. The legal availability of many top contenders, including Nomadland, is also lacking in several countries. That’s the result of closed theaters and slow digital releases.

A few weeks ago UK piracy tracking firm MUSO warned that the unavailability of these movies could trigger a piracy boom . The piracy numbers for Oscar winners tend to shoot up every year. When these films can’t be accessed legally, this will only be worse.

Do Nominations Boost Piracy?

With this in mind, we certainly plan to take a closer look at how the upcoming winners will ‘perform’ on pirate sites. That said, could it be that the nominations themselves have had an effect already?

To research this we looked at a sample of torrent downloads of the Best Picture nominees “Nomadland” and “Judas and the Black Messiah”. The timeframe starts March 5th, ten days before the nominations were announced, and ends ten days after, March 25th.

Generally speaking, pirated movie downloads will vary quite a bit throughout the week, usually peaking on the weekend. While the nominations were announced on a Monday, we decided to add the non-Oscar contender “Honest Thief” as a control.

Piracy Peaked

The results in the graph below clearly show that the downloads for both Oscar contenders peaked after the nominations were announced. Meanwhile, there is no significant change in downloads for “Honest Thief,” which even appeared to dip a little bit.

Percentage-wise, the nomination boost is obvious as well. On the day after the nominations, “Nomadland” downloads were 213% higher than the week before. A week later, these had dropped by more than 50% again.

A similar pattern can be seen for “Judas and the Black Messiah” which saw a 74% increase compared to the week before, to then drop by more than 50% a week later.

Availability is Key

It is worth noting that pirated copies of all these films were available in a high-quality format during the entire period, so that didn’t impact the results in any way.

The only logical conclusion is that Oscar nominations act as a promotion. This drives legal consumption but also piracy. With that in mind, the rightsholders would be wise to make sure that their content is available legally when the winners are announced.

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Note: The data used in this article comes from Iknow , which tracks torrent downloads through DHT and PEX. While it may not be able to track all downloads, it’s a substantial sample, which acts as a good proxy for the overall interest on all pirate sites and services.

It is worth stressing that this sample only looks at torrent downloads. Views on streaming platforms, direct downloads, and other piracy sources can’t be measured directly. That said, we assume that the trend will be similar there.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

After a film premieres at the box office, movie fans typically have to wait a few months before they can see it online, depending on the local release strategy.

This delay tactic, known as a release window, helps movie theaters to maximize their revenues. However, for many pirates, this is also a reason to turn to unauthorized sites and services.

Shrinking Release Windows

In recent years these release windows have slowly decreased and this process was accelerated in the COVID pandemic. Increasingly, traditional delays have come down, and in some cases, release windows have disappeared completely. Warner Bros, for example , now releases movies on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously.

This shift is nothing short of a historic breakthrough. While more choice is good for consumers, these changes also breed uncertainty. Some movie industry insiders and theater owners, for example, fear that their income will be negatively impacted. At the same time, there are concerns that piracy will spike.

These and other questions are addressed in new research conducted by Carnegie Mellon’s Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics ( IDEA ). The research group, which received millions of dollars in gifts from the Motion Picture Association, just analyzed how early releases affect piracy and box office revenue.

Impact on Box Office and Piracy

The results are published in a non-peer-reviewed paper titled The Impact of Early Digital Movie Releases on Box Office Revenue: Evidence from the Korean Market.

As the title suggests, the research focuses on the Korean movie market which is the fourth-largest in the world, following the US, China, and Japan. In recent years movie studios have experimented with release windows in korea, which are significantly shorter than in other countries, including the US.

Instead of waiting three months, Korean “Super Premium” digital releases typically come out a month after the theatrical release. This means that movies are available while they are still playing in theaters.

The researchers use this unique situation to compare various movie revenue streams, as well as piracy figures, with the United States. To get the full picture, they also add in the effect of early versus regular digital releases in Korea itself.

Box Office Revenue is Unaffected

Following a complex statistical analysis, the researchers can estimate the effect of the early “Super Premium” releases on Korean box office revenue. They find a small negative effect of less than 1%, which isn’t statistically significant.

“We find a statistically and economically insignificant decline in theatrical revenue due to the early SP release, equivalent to an approximate 0.8% drop in total theatrical revenue in Korea during the first eight weeks of the theatrical run,” the researchers conclude.

This is an important finding as it shows that releasing a digital copy of movie months in advance doesn’t hurt theater revenues. This suggests that both consumption channels are complementary, which is great news for movie studios.

More Revenue for Movie Studios

And indeed, the researchers find that “Super Premium” video on demand (SPVOD) releases boost studio revenue by roughly 12% during the first weeks.

“Using digital movie sales data in Korea and industry estimates of studio margins on theatrical and SPVOD revenue, we estimate that SPVOD releases increase the marginal revenue received by studios in the first eight weeks of a movie’s Korean release by approximately 12%.”

While this all sounds positive, it’s undeniable that these early releases also impact piracy. This is confirmed by the data which show that the “pirate” release windows are also decreasing. Not just in Korea, but globally too.

No Boost in Piracy Figures

According to the researchers, however, this isn’t much of a problem. People will download pirated copies earlier, but the data don’t show that the piracy volume in Korea or the US increases for these movie titles. Pirates just get to download a film sooner.

“Finally, while the data from torrent piracy suggest that early SPVOD releases lead to earlier global availability of high-quality piracy sources, we see no evidence that these early sources increase piracy demand for movies released in SPVOD windows in either the Korean or US markets.”

All in all, the findings show that the movie industry is on the right track by shortening release windows. It’s not just good for consumers but also increases studios’ income too.

More Research Needed

That said, it’s far too early to generalize. This study looked at a very specific set of movies for which the “Super Premium” release came out after 28 days. It could very well be that longer, shorter, or no delays will have a different impact.

This shortcoming is recognized by the researchers who also stress that more research into the effects on piracy is needed. Especially in cases where a movie is released in one country before it’s available somewhere else.

But with more and more release experiments taking place, we expect that follow-up studies are already underway.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The European Union Intellectual Property Office ( EUIPO ) regularly conducts studies to see how piracy develops over time.

These studies help the public to understand local piracy trends and can be used as input for future policy decisions.

Last month, for example, EUIPO research showed that EU citizens increasingly pay to access content legally. However, a group of stubborn pirates , who often pay for legal content too, remains.

This week, EUIPO released another in-depth piracy report titled “Online Copyright Infringement in the European Union.” The research is a follow-up to a report published last year which found that access to pirated content across Europe dropped by more than 15 percent.

Last year’s study revealed some broader effects as well. For example, it found that people from lower-income countries tend to pirate more and that awareness of legal options doesn’t always decrease piracy.

Most Popular Pirated Titles

The new research is partly based on the same data, which was purchased from the piracy tracking firm MUSO. Instead of looking at the broader piracy effect, this time the research zooms in on the most pirated movies, TV-shows, and artists.

These data are estimated from public BitTorrent tracker data which were extrapolated to other piracy services, such as streaming and direct download sites. While this method is far from exact, it should give a good indication of the broader piracy demand.

The 123-page report is in large part made up of tables with the most pirated titles in the EU as a whole and in individual member states. It’s based on data that covers only part of 2018, which means that it’s limited in scope and a bit dated. Still, it’s worth scanning over the results.

Justice League, Walking Dead, and Ed Sheeran

With over 42 million estimated downloads, Justice League was the most downloaded movie in the EU. The Walking Dead was the most pirated TV-show, with over 435 million downloads, and with nearly 7.5 million downloads, Ed Sheeran was the most pirated musician.

The most popular titles and artists show a lot of overlap between EU countries. That said, there are some local outliers as well.

Local Favorites

For example, the Norwegian metal band Immortal tops the music piracy chart in Norway, and the Swedish metal band HammerFall takes the top spot in Sweden. In Spain, American singer Luis Fonsi is pirated more than any other artist, and in Germany Bob Dylan managed to beat Ed Sheeran by a few thousand downloads.

There are similar outliers for movies and TV-shows. For example, The Mummy was disproportionately popular in Spain, taking the top spot in the film category. In the TV category, South Park does surprisingly well in Finland, beating all other shows.

These local trends are intriguing, but they don’t necessarily lead to broader conclusions. However, a more analytical approach shows that there is something to learn.

Film Piracy Findings

The findings show that there isn’t that much difference in film tastes between various countries. There is a lot of overlap between the 30 most pirated films per country and for the EU as a whole. Also, piracy is mostly affecting newer and commercially successful mainstream films.

This leads to the perhaps obvious conclusion that commercial success is linked to piracy. In other words, when more people see a movie in the theater, it’s pirated more frequently as well.

“This analysis shows that commercial success is associated with higher levels of piracy: when the number of tickets sold increases by 10 %, the number of illegal downloads increases by 3.7 %,” the findings read.

The second film piracy effect is more intriguing. Films from Canada, Australia, China, Finland, Germany, India and Russia take a bigger share of the total pirate downloads, compared to the total box office numbers.

“Piracy of films from these seven countries represents 2.8 % of film piracy and 1.8 % of admissions in EU cinemas. Although the total cumulated piracy of the last group is low, they suffer a relatively higher piracy rate than the more widely distributed films.”

This can be partially explained due to the fact that these films are not always available legally due to limited availability in movie theaters. Piracy is then a convenient alternative.

TV and Music Piracy

TV-shows are by far the most popular content on pirate sites. Obviously, more recent TV-shows are pirated more frequently but the link with legal consumption is less clear than with music and films.

While there’s a bit more variety in taste between EU countries, on average, 19 of the 30 most popular series are also on the EU’s top 30 list.

Local differences are most apparent when it comes to music, as our examples earlier already illustrated. On average, 16 of the most popular artists in a country also appear in the EU’s top 30.

In terms of volume, music is the least popular category of the three. The most popular artist, Ed Sheeran, was downloaded 7.5 million times while The Walking Dead topped 435 million downloads.

In addition, it appears that piracy preferences are lagging behind actual sales a little.

“In music, there is also a relationship between commercial success and piracy, although with a delay: many of the best-selling musicians of 2017 were the most pirated artists in 2018,” the report reads.

Conclusions and Future Research

The EUIPO study concludes that piracy seems to be driven by demand. Consumers want to watch the content that’s most appealing to them, legally or illegally. When it becomes harder to access something through legal channels, piracy tends to increase.

“These results underscore the importance of legal accessibility as one of the ways in which consumption of pirated content can be reduced,” the report concludes.

With the constantly evolving media landscape, EUIPO’s Audiovisual Observatory plans to follow up the current findings with more in-depth research. This includes the effects of movies that skip cinema releases and are made available on-demand immediately, by Netflix and Amazon for example.

And with Warner Bros’ recent decision to premiere all 2021 movie titles on HBO Max and in cinema simultaneously, another area of research just popped up.

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A copy of the “Online Copyright Infringement in the European union title-level study: Film, Music and TV”, is available here

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.