Almost a quarter (23%) of US internet households believe that pirating content is acceptable. This, according to Parks Associates, is up from 14% in 2019.
According to international research firm it will host “Digital Piracy and Distribution” virtually on Thursday, September 22, 11:00 AM CT US, as part of the fifth annual Future of Video: OTT, Pay TV, and Digital Media.
Future of Video, sponsored by Adeia, FPT Software, Quickplay, SymphonyAI Media, Comcast Technology Solutions, Metrological, and Friend MTS, will bring together industry leaders for visionary presentations, interactive panel discussions, and analyst insights.
Jennifer Kent, VP, Research, Parks Associates, said: “Almost half of pirates believe stealing content is acceptable because there are no consequences to the behaviour.
“The session provides insights on piracy behaviour and triggers and strategies to balance piracy prevention with subscriber retention and churn motivators. We are excited to bring the industry together to share insights on this important topic”.
Parks Associates provided comments by panellists ahead of the session. They were as follows:
“We’ve found that consumers pirate NOT because they want to but because they’re often forced to by an increasingly complex and fragmented streaming landscape that was built for companies, not users,” said Tim Cutting, GM, Reelgood.
“Some consumers do not even realise that they are viewing pirated content,” said Serhad Doken, CTO, Adeia. “There is room for improvement from the industry in several perspectives: education, content security, and product design”.
“Piracy’s impact has gone from bad to worse, and it’s hitting content owners and service providers where it hurts: in their pockets. The good news is there is technology and intelligence available to keep content secure and stop them in their tracks,” said Steve Epstein, fellow solutions engineer, Synamedia. “I’m looking forward to talking through the myriad of ways pirates can infiltrate and, more importantly, how we can help shut them down at Future of Video”.
“We’re talking to the largest streamers and studios in the world, and they are all expressing a similar feeling – piracy is a today problem to solve,” said Matthew Fite, CTO, Verimatrix. “I think that as an industry we have the opportunity and the responsibility right now to work together to find creative solutions to shut down piracy”.
“With an increasingly fragmented content landscape as content owners range direct-to-consumer services, piracy is soaring. Ultimately, consumers are looking for content, so we all need to focus on the best, aggregated approaches to allow this to happen,” said Sebastian Kramer, SVP product management, Nagra.
“However, for pirate-hosted streaming services, the industry has other tactics to disrupt and block access. Fighting piracy and illegal content sharing using the Nagra Active Streaming Protection framework, which tackles areas such as app protection, credential hijacking, and CDN content theft, is just one example of how our customers are delivering a robust defence against streaming piracy”.
“EZDRM is pleased to participate in the Future of Video discussions as we believe strongly in the commercial foundations of the streaming media business,” said Olga Kornienko, Co-founder and COO, EZDRM. “Internet distribution does not eliminate the fundamental need to monetise the production and distribution of great content – something we help to enable every day”.
“We’re extremely pleased to be joining this illustrious panel and to highlight how broadcasters, platform operators, and rights holders can address the threats posed to them by video piracy,” said Chris White, operations director, Friend MTS.