New research for Synamedia has found the value of entertainment piracy to be 300% greater than sports.
The study, conducted on behalf of the video software provider by Ampere Analysis has found over $400 million in revenue for Spider Man: No Way Home went ‘missing’ as a result of piracy. Ampere finds the value of entertainment piracy is three times bigger than sports piracy and that the fragmentation of rights across more services is now affecting piracy in the entertainment market as it has for sports.
Comedy, driven by titles including Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Ted Lasso, is the most-pirated genre, followed by the action and adventure genre, and the crime and thriller category respectively.
If piracy was stopped, sports would create $9.8 billion in potential revenue in the seven surveyed markets, however, this figure is dwarfed by the possibility of unlocking an additional $21.8 billion in revenue by converting movie and TV pirates to legal services.
According to the research, Germany, Italy and the UK have the lowest levels of piracy. But, by stopping piracy and converting pirate viewers to legal subscribers in the UK for example, video providers and content owners have the potential to unlock $1.36 billion for entertainment and $1.17 billion for sports annually.
According to Guy Bisson, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Ampere Analysis: “There is a persistent myth that the pirate consumer won’t pay and will never pay. This research overturns this received wisdom, with more than half of all pirate viewers paying for pirate TV services and 54% also paying for legal services. We already knew sports piracy was a big-money issue, but what surprised us most about this study was the true scale of impact on the US major studios and Hollywood as a whole.”
Football is the star sports piracy attraction and, despite being available on free-to-air TV in many markets, FIFA World Cup it is the most pirated league according to the findings. This reflects its popularity globally but indicates that even free content can suffer from piracy if fans already use illegal sites to access other sports content. UEFA Champions League and the English Premier League are second and third respectively.
Pirate viewers using both free and paid for services are more likely to be male and paying pirates more likely to be men under 35 with young children.
Avigail Gutman, Vice President of Intelligence and Security Operations at Synamedia, said, “Unless the industry takes action, the fragmentation of premium content compounded by the current economic climate will continue to drive viewers to both paid and free piracy services. This represents a real risk to rights holders, broadcasters and streaming providers. As well as using tools and techniques to protect content and services, operators can counter the rise in piracy by ensuring content is easy to find and meeting consumers’ demands for mobile-first services, as well as more aggregated services and billing.”
The research also measured the impact of individual movie titles and TV shows on consumers’ interest in signing up.