Online piracy around the world has been increasing in a continuous fashion over the years. With so many streaming services available at a cost, consumers are trying to find new ways to stream their favorite movies, music, and TV shows for free.
It, therefore, comes as no surprise that many people seek illegal methods to obtain the material they want. However, piracy is much more than just downloading files. Piracy has a way of sneaking into our everyday lives, much of which you may not be aware of.
Before you decide it’s time to unsubscribe from your streaming services in favor of illegal torrenting, it’s worth taking a look at these shocking piracy statistics we’ve put together. While piracy hasn’t gone away, it’s imperative you understand these statistics before falling into a world of piracy.
Table of Contents
Shocking Piracy Statistics
- Pirated videos get more than 230 billion views a year
- People in the US make the most visits to piracy websites
- Pornography is the most pirated content worldwide
- Due to piracy, 71,000 jobs are lost in the USA
- 70% of online users believe there is nothing wrong with online piracy
- Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV show
- TV and film piracy costs the industry up to $71 billion per year
- Millennials are the most likely generation to consider piracy as normal
Global Piracy Statistics
- Up to 560,000 jobs are lost due to digital video piracy in the US
- In 2017, $315 million in book sales were lost due to eBook piracy
- While the US has the most visits per country to piracy sites, Russia is not far behind with over 14 billion visits in 2018
- Stream ripping services saw a 1390% increase in popularity in the UK between 2016 and 2019
- In 2016, 57 million Americans were pirating music
- 83% of UK adults who have pirated music say they did it because of the lack of paid options
- More than 80% of global online piracy can be attributed to illegal streaming services
- The global movie industry’s revenue losses from digital piracy are between $40 and $97.1 billion per year
- Illegally uploading or downloading copyrighted materials takes up nearly 24% of the bandwidth used in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific
Music Piracy Statistics
- The most common reason for downloading pirated music is due to price
- More than a third of music listeners still pirate music
- 27% of music consumers accessed unlicensed music in 2017
- 34% of Gen Z use stream ripping
- In 2018 in the US there were 17 million stream rippers
Software Piracy Statistics
- The highest piracy rates of unlicensed software in 2017 was from the Asia-Pacific region
- Between 2015 and 2017, the software industry lost $46.3 billion due to piracy
- 16% of the software on personal computers in the US is unlicensed
- It takes around 243 days for organizations to detect unlicensed software packages
- Software piracy rates worldwide dropped to 37% in 2017
- Many countries still have unlicensed software rates of 50% or more
- 83% of unlicensed users in mature markets don’t want to break the law
- 2 in 5 copies of software products in distribution are unpaid
- A 20% increase in software compliance can improve a company’s profits by 11%
- 76% of employees would not report the illegal use of the software at their company
Piracy Demographic Statistics
- In 2004, the average pirate was aged between 16 and 24 years old
- In 2018, piracy was more evenly spread, with people aged between 25 to 34 most likely to pirate content in the UK
- Millennials are the most common generation to normalize piracy
- 31% of minors in Australia are pirating movies or enjoying illegal music downloads
- Those in the 30-44 age category are most likely to pirate books
- 44.44% of male college-age students see online music piracy as positive
Movie & TV Piracy Statistics
- TV shows remain the most popular genre among pirates
- 126.7 billion episodes worth of US-produced TV series are illegally downloaded each year
- Digital video piracy is costing US content and distribution sectors between $29.2 and $71.0 billion each year
- The global movie industry is losing between $40 and $97.1 billion in revenue each year due to digital piracy
- Illegally uploading or downloading copyrighted materials takes up 24% of the bandwidth used across North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific
- More than 50% of torrent and streaming pirates use desktop devices
- Pirate downloads are 28 more times likely to infect a consumer’s device with malware
References
- https://www.usm.edu/
- https://www.creativefuture.org/
- https://www.ivir.nl/
- https://www.ifpi.org/
- https://www.muso.com/
- https://www.revulytics.com/
- https://www.statista.com/
- https://www.forbes.com/
- https://www.prsformusic.com/
- https://www.bsa.org/
- https://www.digitalcitizensalliance.org/
- https://www.redpoints.com/
- https://www.musicwatchinc.com/
- https://www.nera.com/
- https://www.riaa.com/
- https://www.thetimes.co.uk/
- https://www.theglobalipcenter.com/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/688411/book-piracy-sites/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/943206/music-piracy-reasons/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/1139162/pirated-website-latin-america
- https://www.revenera.com/blog/software-monetization/2018-revulytics-software-piracy-statistics/
- https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252442806/APAC-remains-a-hotbed-for-software-piracy
- https://www.videocites.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/COVID-19-Effect-on-Shortening-Theatrical-Windows-Piracy.pdf
- https://www.redpoints.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/red-points-ebook-millennials-and-piracy.pdf
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamrowe1/2019/07/28/us-publishers-are-still-losing-300-million-annually-to-ebook-piracy/#dee2839319e0
- https://djmag.com/news/music-piracy-rates-are-plummeting-2019
- https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/you-would-be-surprised-who-pirates-the-most-e-books
- https://observer.com/2020/07/most-pirated-tv-series-pandemic/