Which country has the biggest problem with piracy? The answer is surprising
MUSO has published a new report on online piracy in specific industries. We learn from it in which countries the most illegal content is obtained. The top of the ranking may surprise you.
It might seem that the golden age of piracy is over, when the most important program on every PC was μTorrent, and illegal DVDs with films could be bought at every bazaar. However, it turns out that not entirely. As reported by the company MUSO specializing in monitoring this phenomenon, in 2023, websites providing access to pirated content enjoyed record interest.
Piracy is alive and growing
Total recorded on this type of sites 229.4 billion visits, which is an increase of 6.7% compared to 2022. The most popular were portals providing free access TV programs (including production of own streaming portals) that were visited 103.9 billion times.
The first season turned out to be the most popular series among pirates The Last of Us produced by HBOwhich happened 24.3 percent entire traffic. What turns out to be more interesting, however, is from where there were pirates using this type of websites.
The USA is the undisputed leader among pirates
We usually associate piracy with developing countries, mainly Eastern Europe and Asia. Meanwhile, in the two largest categories according to the report – television programs and books and comics – the United States takes first place. This seems to confirm the hypothesis that the dominant role in driving piracy was not the wealth of potential recipients, but the availability of content. When it comes to TV series, there has been an argument in the media for a long time that the increasing fragmentation of the market would discourage further subscriptions. In turn, in the case of books and comics, the most frequently “pirated” are manga, which appear on Western markets with a significant delay compared to the original publication.
They turned out to be the leader when it comes to illegally downloading movies India with a 30.6 percent share, which outclassed the competition – the USA is in second place with only 6.28 percent. It reigns supreme in the music piracy category Iran, in which – it is worth emphasizing – due to censorship, legal streaming platforms are unavailable, including: Spotify. Finally, when it comes to illegal software, it took first place in the ranking Russia.
As you can see, piracy is still doing well, and the only thing that has changed in recent years are the motives of people visiting portals providing illegal content. This is a serious problem for content creators, although it doesn’t seem like they intend to do anything about it yet. Well, maybe apart from further increases in subscription prices – we have one thing in hand.
