Global piracy numbers reached almost 190 billion pirate site visits in 2018, according to figures released by MUSO.
London-based MUSO collects data from billions of piracy infringements every day to help entertainment companies and rights owners see a bigger picture.
Over 189 billion visits were made to pirate sites in 2018. TV-related piracy took up 49.38% of all activity related to piracy, with only 17.9% for access to film.
Music was the third most pirated medium in 2018, with a 15.87% share. Only publishing and software were lower (11.49% and 6.16% respectively).
Almost 60 % of all piracy visits are to unlicensed web streaming sites, whereas public torrent networks now only equate to 13% of piracy visit activity.
The US was the nation with the most visits to pirate websites with well over 17 billion in 2018. Russia was only three billion visits behind the US with 14 billion visits. UK-specific data shows a decline, even in the streaming piracy
sector. While there were 4.5 billion visits recorded in 2017, this fell to 3.9 billion in 2018.
Andy Chatterley, CEO and co-founder of MUSO commented: “Digital piracy is still prevalent globally. Television is the most popular content for piracy and given the fragmentation of content across multiple streaming services perhaps this isn’t surprising.”
“Whilst it’s important to restrict the distribution of unlicensed content, there is a wealth of insight to be garnered from piracy audience data that gives a comprehensive view of global content consumption.
“Interestingly, in 2018 we have seen a ten percent increase in people bypassing search engines and going directly to the piracy destination of their choice. Simply focusing on take-downs is clearly a whack-a-mole approach and, while an essential part of any content protection strategy, it needs to be paired with more progressive thinking. With the right mindsight, piracy audiences can offer huge value to rights holders.”
The list of countries with the most pirate visits reads:
United States Of America: 17,380,038,844
Russian Federation: 14,468,624,277
Brazil: 10,283,315,744
India: 9,589,665,210
France: 7,339,837,375
Turkey: 7,335,249,001
Ukraine: 6,126,077,097
Indonesia: 6,075,238,380
United Kingdom: 5,750,562,133
Germany: 5,356,667,376
