Livestream Piracy Inflicts Surprising Damage Across the Entire Viewing Ecosystem
As we’ve discussed in some of our recent blogs, digital piracy is on the rise due to a confluence of factors. This includes proliferation of streaming services, changes in content consumption among consumers, and ease of access across the online landscape. Included under the digital piracy umbrella is livestream piracy, which comes with its own set of challenges due to its real-time nature.
Though there are many types of broadcasted events, sports are the most popular livestreamed content - watched by 61% of viewers who subscribe to streaming services1. Yet a study of 6,000 sports fans across 10 countries also found that 51% of the group pirated live sports monthly, despite 89% of them having at least one streaming subscription2.
In other words, users are watching the livestreamed events but just under half are paying for them. These eye-opening numbers translate into substantial revenue loss for rights owners, as they have limited ability to stop piracy in real-time. But as they say, “piracy is not a victimless crime,” with the fallout extending beyond just rights owners. Today we’ll take a special lens to livestream piracy as we examine the damage done to stakeholders across the full livestream ecosystem:
Financial and Operational Harm to Rights Owners
We explored this a bit above, but the most obvious damage to rights’ owners is lost revenue. Experts estimate digital piracy in general costs streaming services approximately $30B in annual revenue3 and expect this number to reach $113B by 20274. Live sports streaming specifically results in an estimated $28B in annual losses each year.
Many streaming services rely on manual, time-consuming solutions for taking down their pirated content.
This may be acceptable (though not ideal) for pre-recorded entertainment, but live events do not have time on their side. If they can’t locate and shut down pirated streams in real-time, then any efforts to recover revenue will be wasted.
Lost revenue aside, these rights owners also lose control of their exclusivity and overall brand – further eroding their ability to capitalize on their live content in the future. You may not feel sympathy for the players and executives earning millions, but these events support a host of peripheral stakeholders that rely on this revenue for their own financial well-being. This includes:
- Advertisers
- Non-profits
- Marketing and PR agencies
- Sponsors
- Managers
- Support staff
- Trainers
- Security teams
- And more...
Increased Costs and Reduced Quality for Legal Viewers
The most obvious damage done to legal viewers in the case of livestream piracy is increasing costs. If rights owners know they’ll have a high percentage of viewers watching their livestreams illegally, then they will find the quickest and easiest way to recover that revenue – typically in the form of increased pricing to their legal customer base. And unfortunately, the damage doesn’t end there.
Legal viewers may also suffer from decreased quality in the livestream, as piracy sites consume large amounts of broadband – roughly 24% globally5. This strain can lead to unwanted buffering, choppy graphics, and momentary lapses in event coverage even for paying customers.
Quality and Security Risks for Illegal Viewers
Ironically, viewers consuming piracy may be the group suffering the most.
To start, illegal viewers suffer from streaming quality to a much larger degree than legal viewers.
Much of this is by design, as digital thieves often must purposely distort the stream in some way to evade detection and continue broadcasting the event. But illegal viewers also suffer from buffering, choppy graphics, and minor lapses in coverage. The big difference here is that illegal viewers are watching for free and thus may not mind these distortions or reduction in quality nearly as much.
Then there’s the issue of malware. In 2021, a cybersecurity company did a study of 20 sites illegally streaming live sports to get a snapshot of the dangers involved with watching a 90-minute illegal stream. To carry this out, they looked specifically at the English Football final game called the Carabao Cup and honed in on 12 “game sites” for an even deeper analysis. Their findings were astounding, showing that 92% of illegal streaming sites contained some type of malicious content that could harm a user’s computer6.
They also found most of these sites using dishonesty and social engineering to fool users into opening dangerous links, as well as excessive link redirects to completely spoofed and/or fake pages. From there, the fake pages were a smorgasbord of additional malware, scams, and other harmful threats.
Overlooked Consequences for Content Pirates
Notice we’ve not yet addressed the harm that befalls those who actually pirate the livestreaming content. This is because typically there aren’t any true consequences to this group. In fact, digital pirates often benefit from piracy in some way – whether through advertising income or even just for pure bragging rights. You can read more about that in one of our earlier blogs here.
Unfortunately, one of the few downsides to livestream piracy is legal consequences, and even those carry little weight with this group. They know there is a small likelihood of 1) being discovered 2) being prosecuted and 3) actually having to PAY the legal settlement. This is why companies have increasingly been taking matters into their own hands, working with technology vendors and law firms who can help them address piracy in more fruitful ways.
But even still, most anti-piracy solutions have a tremendous amount of catching up to do when it comes to tackling infringements.
Most options available on the market today are manual and/or pieced together across multiple vendors, rendering them too slow, ineffective, and costly to make a difference. This is especially true for livestream piracy, which requires a sophisticated solution that can find and shut down pirated streams in real time.
To learn more about how to address this type of piracy efficiently and effectively, you can visit our website or contact us for a complementary consultation.
Sources
1. https://www.lightreading.com/broadband/sports-are-the-most-popular-livestreamed-content-watched-by-61-of-of-viewers2. https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/live-sport-piracy-service-pay-tv-ott-platform-subscription-study/
5. https://www.go-globe.com/online-piracy-in-numbers-facts-and-statistics-infographic/
