Illegal video streaming on the rise due to 'fragmented' market

5th Oct 2018 09:20

(Sharecast News) - Online piracy is increasing in popularity once again because there are so many television streaming platforms that consumers are unwilling to pay multiple subscriptions.A few years back the rise of legal streaming services such as Netflix and BBC iPlayer reduced consumers need of pirate websites and their use declined significantly.Nevertheless, according to a report from tech consultant Sandvine, the decline in pirate streaming traffic has reversed this past year due to the fragmentation of the legal streaming market, which in UK sports for example means fans of top-level football need Sky and BT's sports channels in order have their choice of games, with Amazon now also stepping on the pitch. BitTorrent, the most popular file-sharing platform, now accounts for 31% cent of all data uploaded to the internet in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, compared with 27% cent in 2015."More sources than ever are producing 'exclusive' content available on a single streaming or broadcast service - think Game of Thrones for HBO, House of Cards for Netflix, The Handmaid's Tale for Hulu, or Jack Ryan for Amazon," Cam Cullen, vice-president of global marketing at Sandvine, said. "To get access to all of these services, it gets very expensive for a consumer, so they subscribe to one or two and pirate the rest."He added: "Many of these exclusive series are US-based and do not have good distribution internationally, so people download it because they have no access to the content. Game of Thrones is so popular that unless it premieres at the exact same time worldwide, people will download it the moment it's available from anywhere."According to the report, file sharing is increasing in markets like Europe, Middle East, Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.