Digital piracy is making waves again, and streamers and record labels should be worried

Re-hoisting the Jolly Roger… Online piracy is on the rise as some stream-fatigued consumers set sail for cheaper content waters. Stealing music, movies, and shows was big in the early 2000s. But even as Netflix and Spotify make content more accessible than ever, piracy is surging. Since 2019, visits to piracy sites are up 13%. That’s got entertainment execs (already struggling with profitability) shivering their timbers.

• Yo Ho: Piracy costs the US (fyi: the global leader in piracy) ~$30B/year in lost revenue. Meantime, streamers including Disney and Netflix have hiked prices while cracking down on password mooching.

• Big bounty: The top three US piracy sites have 2M users paying $5 to $10/month to consume illegally hosted content (pirates make $$ from ads too). A Philadelphia man behind a major TV-piracy scheme was sentenced last year to over five years in prison and ordered to forfeit $30M in assets.

• A swift example: Taylor Swift’s albums were torrented 5M times last year, but the real figure is likely much higher: torrents represent a fraction of music piracy.

Actually, many would download a car… (that PSA didn’t work, btw). Research has shown that people who pirate tend to spend more on legit content than their peers — but turn to piracy when content is unaffordable or too hard to access. Warner Bros.’ “Last of Us” was the most pirated TV show last year, and anime (which tends to drop on piracy sites far earlier than lawful streamers) accounted for 25% of all pirated content. Anti-piracy experts say the streaming industry’s ongoing price hikes will likely lead to $113B in piracy losses by 2027.