Impatience, Not Cost, Is What Motivates Most Film and TV Piracy
Yo-ho-ho and a study by this audit firm.
Seven percent of consumers admitted to watching pirated movies and TV shows, according to the results of a new survey published by Deloitte. In reality, the number who pirate movies and shows is likely a bit higher — piracy being illegal and all of that. But unlike the pirates of the sea, the plunder for the pirates of the web is said to be time, not money.
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Only 18 percent of the admitted content pirates say the reason they choose to illegally access films and series is because it’s cheaper than watching them lawfully. Free is typically cheaper than not free.
That’s a not-insignificant number of respondents, but it is only about half the amount (35 percent) of consumers who say the price is the reason they borrow streaming passwords. That practice isn’t as frowned upon as piracy — there are still some streaming services that let that sort of thing go — but the studios would prefer you paid for it.
All that said, half of the pirates (vs. 36 percent of consumers overall) believe the content itself on SVOD isn’t even worth the price, so make of that what you will.
Nearly the same amount (46 percent, vs. just 27 percent of overall respondents) of the pirates say they’d be more likely to pay to watch individual shows and films than pay a monthly subscription fee for a streaming service. Guys, ever hear of PVOD? That’s a perfectly legal way that’s sitting right there. We hear movie theaters even take money these days.
What these modern-day Blackbeards (real guy) and Jack Sparrows (not real guy) say they are really after is convenience. Forty percent of Deloitte’s pirates say they choose the thievery life because they want early access — or they’re sick of waiting for a movie to make the jump from theaters to streaming. For those who borrow passwords, only 18 percent cited timing as their reason for using another person’s streaming subscription. A real-world example of this would be a Netflix user watching an Illumination film on someone else’s Peacock account before the movie jumped to Netflix, so it exists.
The pirated-content users are also looking for uncensored content, they told Deloitte.
Ew. Like pirates, these guys (chill: They’re probably all guys) sound like they probably have scurvy.
IndieWire reached out to the MPA, which is the law and order against content piracy (consider them the British Royal Navy in this scenario), with a request for comment on the Deloitte study’s findings. We did not immediately receive a response.
Deloitte serves as an advisory company to some of the biggest brands, so naturally it put together some advice for streaming platforms, like: “Consider partnering with cybersecurity experts and cloud providers to protect their content from being pirated and shared illegally online — leveraging encryption and blockchain technologies and AI-monitored detection systems.”
Smart.
If that proves too pricey (in all industries, some level of breakage is considered the cost of doing business), “Educate consumers about the dangers of accessing pirated content.”
Sure that’s cool.
And: “Implement systems for community reporting.”
Narcs! Pirates are not gonna like that.
Some of the findings in graphic (not that kind, gross-o pirates) form:
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