Protect Content and Revenue with an AI-Enabled Piracy Platform

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We'll start with a sobering statistic for fun... The cost of piracy for the sports industry is projected to reach $28B dollars by 2023 - for the United States alone.

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I'm probably not alone in thinking that isn't a fun statistic, especially not if you're part of the sports industry, which isn't restricted to owners and executives. Here are a few more folks the growing piracy problem is causing harm:

• Event spaces and arenas
• Advertisers
• Non-profits
• Marketing and PR agencies
• Sponsors
• Athletes
• Managers
• Support staff, trainers, security teams, and more

Content piracy has been expanding across all forms of digital content, with movie and television studios taking a heavy hit as well. The pandemic didn't do anyone any favors, and sports has seen an upswing in instances of outright piracy, secondhand piracy, and copyright infringement just like all other forms of media.

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The Costs of Content Piracy

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While you may not be in one of the groups listed above, chances are you're still paying a price for the content that's being pirated.

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Here are a few ways costs increase for everyone:

• Increased subscription costs to streaming services
• High cable and satellite TV costs
• Higher prices at retailers whose advertising costs increase to recover losses from media companies
• Increasing ticket prices at events
• Internet slowdowns and outages (shockingly, pirated content uses more than 24% of the country's available bandwidth!)

The Many Forms of Piracy and Their Detection Challenges

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Content piracy can be even sneakier than you'd guess, and not just because the perpetrators are getting craftier with their tactics, but also because the average consumer is more digitally savvy and sometimes doesn't even realize they're doing it.

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While most of us are familiar with torrent sites and traditional piracy techniques, here are a few other forms of piracy that are becoming more prevalent and costing consumers billions.

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Here are a few lesser known ways that digital content is pirated online:

• Password sharing. Yep, if you have an account to a streaming service and you share the login information, then technically you are pirating content. While this seems like a small scale issue, when replicated across millions of viewers the costs add up. Tack onto that, there are malicious users who aren't just sharing their password with a friend or family member - they're actively sharing or selling access to hundreds of people - and you can see the trouble. (Netflix claims to lose $192M per month from this type of piracy alone.)
• "Not quite real paid sites." While the old school version of content piracy was free viewing of movies and TV shows online, more sophisticated piracy schemes include the ability to pay for live-streaming sports events around the world for a fee, just one that is less than what the pay-per-view or streaming services are charging.
• Social media explosion. It's easier than ever to find pirated content online, and in places you might not know you're watching pirated content. Looking at stuff on Pinterest and see a cool picture with "Watch the Avengers online now" next to it --- probably a pirate site. Channels like Tik-Tok, Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, and more are all being inundated with links and embeds that have pirated content, and live streamed sports content is one of the hottest tickets in town.

New Anti-Piracy Efforts for Sports-Specific Content

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Crackdowns are coming though, with major media, streaming, and network organizations rallying behind the cause.

Just a few months ago, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which was formed by the MPAA in 2017, announced that it is stepping up its efforts to detect and stop sports TV feeds distributed on unauthorized streaming sites.

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Coalitions, sites, brands, and media companies are starting to rely on machine learning and AI-enabled platforms like Redflag AI to detect and, in some cases, take action on piracy sites and social media users.

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The reason machine learning is so attractive? Until recently, this work has been done manually. With billions of pages and millions of users to sift through, most humans were months behind the job. Many piracy sites are taken down or moved by the time a manual review process gets to them.

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Making matters even more difficult, spotting piracy can be difficult for anyone because there are a number of false positives, authors that change their names, and a growing number of social channels and messaging apps that spread the information out.

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If you're interested in chatting about Redflag AI's anti-piracy platform, set up a demo here.

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Get to Know Redflag AI

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The $28B Question: How Will You Protect Your Content Online?

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Can you spot piracy sites, authors, and channels fast enough to keep them from stealing millions of views? Here are a few ways Redflag AI helps our users keep their brand safe.

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Advanced Piracy Detection

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Discovery direct content piracy, logo and copyright infringement across the web, on social platforms, and for text, image, video, and audio.

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Sentiment Analysis

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Analyze and track changes in sentiment across 20 different feelings ranging from joy and excitement to disgust and shame. Spot threatening statements against players, employees, and facilities.

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Analyze Influencers

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Find and monitor influencers for your teams and media. Spot changing influencers and track their trending topics to ensure they're still a good fit and safe for your brand.

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Redflag AI Benefits

• Customizable brand and safety guidelines
• Integrate ad placements and sponsored content
• Piracy detection across channels, by authors, and domain authority
• Proprietary data sentiment, intent, and bot detection
• Integrate community management, engagement, and data enrichment through Redflag Insight