Despite Netflix and Amazon Prime, Most of the World Watches Pirated Content (techinasia.com)

An anonymous reader shares a TechInAsia report: More than half of the people surveyed across the world still watch pirated movies and TV shows, a new survey shows. The study, conducted by digital security firm Irdeto, asked more than 25,000 adults across 30 countries about video watching trends. Here's what it found: 52 percent of those surveyed said they watch pirated videos. 48 said they would stop, or watch less illegal content after they were told about the damaging effects of piracy on the media industry. While many recognize that producing or sharing pirated video is illegal (70 percent), far fewer people are aware that streaming or downloading is also against the law (59 percent).

Comments

lol amazon prime

[whoozwah]

Dude. Amazon prime's streaming is garbage. It's all bait n switch. You're paying 100 bucks a year and you only get a handful of episodes per show/season. After that they expect you to pay per episode. No thanks.

Re:lol amazon prime

[hawguy]

Dude. Amazon prime's streaming is garbage. It's all bait n switch. You're paying 100 bucks a year and you only get a handful of episodes per show/season. After that they expect you to pay per episode. No thanks.

Well, you're not paying $100/year for prime streaming. At least few people are.

I'm paying $100/year for the shipping benefits (I make it all back during Christmastime when I send gifts to my extended family), the prime streaming is just a perk... and sometimes useful since there are some shows that Prime has that Netflix doesn't. So prime streaming is worth something to be, but not $100/year. Maybe $10/year. Though if I didn't have Netflix, Prime Video would be much more valuable to me.

Re:lol amazon prime

[gnick]

This goes hand-in-hand with TFA's conclusion. Start watching a series on Prime, continue watching it pirated. Then, next time, eliminate Prime from the loop since it added so little. Amazon Prime and Netflix will never have as wide a catalog as TPB.

Re:lol amazon prime

[dmomo]

I found that often, even though we are paying Prime fees for free shipping, the shipping fees are still often reflected in the cost of the item. I don't know why I keep Prime. They seem to be double dipping at times. When you search for the same item and find it for a lower price, it's likely a non-prime item, and often the price difference is pretty much in the ball park of the 2-day shipping cost.

Re:lol amazon prime

[Anonymous Coward]

So if the problem is that prime-eligible items have their prices jacked up by the cost of shipping, thus negating the value of the service, the solution is to ignore the problem? Do you work for Amazon?

Re:lol amazon prime

[serviscope_minor]

Then, next time, eliminate Prime from the loop since it added so little.

It actually subtracts a bit, rather than adds anything. Thing is, go to TPB, type in the name, get a super fast download (choose the quality), and watch it on any device, with your own media player, in any way you want with precisely ZERO hassles from DRM.

That's the problem with pirated stuff: it's not just that's free, it's also better.

Contrast that with music. If I get it from amazon, after paying, I get a zip file with nicely categorized, DRM free, play anywhere anyhow files in it. That is an excellent product.

It's all about CONVENIENCE.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirated material can be played with your player of choice, on your device of choice.

It can be played at 1.5x speed. The audio can be amplified, or filtered, and the channels can be mixed differently.

The video can be transcoded to meet the needs of a mobile device.

The content can be consumed off-grid.

There is just so much convenience when these motherfuckers get out the goddamn way!!!1111

Re:It's all about CONVENIENCE.

[TWX]

I think you're drilling-down too far.

Pirated content is free from restrictions governing its availability. It's availability is not limited to a single television season for a few weeks or months, or for a slate of a hundred films for a few months before being changed-out and no longer being available. The viewer is free to watch any content that they can find any time they want to.

We have over 2000 movies and TV seasons in our physical media collection spanning five formats. There are no restrictions preventing us from watching whatever we want from this set. If streaming is going to work, this is how it will have to work, like someone's personal movie collection, with everything possible available all of the time, ad infinitum. Forever.

Re:It's all about CONVENIENCE.

[peragrin]

It gets better as studios are still restricting content per region and sometimes country. In Europe and USA and Canada you can get commercial for shows that are airing a few miles away but you can't legally watch for another few months per the studios desired schedule.

I find it funny. You have a hit show world wide. You tell the word when it will air in country a and then get pissed when the world pirates it since it won't be in their country for 6-9 months in the future.

Piracy is and always will be an economic one if people are pirating your content that means the supply side is not meeting the needs of the demand side in a massive way.

Obligatory Oatmeal

[Anonymous Coward]

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

Re:Obligatory Oatmeal

[hawguy]

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

Sure that's funny and all, but how do I find the site for "Impossibly proportioned girls that want to date your testicles!"? I've been searching for that my whole life!

Re:Obligatory Oatmeal

[JaredOfEuropa]

Pirated content: timely, convenient, a decent choice of formats and compression, unencumbered with DRM for offline watching on any device, a huge selection of both older and new material, easy to find and download. And also cheap, but I put that advantage last for a reason. Remember when we had AllOfMP3? At the time I said it made a great example for a proper legal online music shop. Maybe at some point the movie / TV industry will take note as well, and start offering their content in a more timely and friendly manner.

In this country, the official position used to be "provide your content in an acceptable manner or we won't prosecute people when they pirate it". They have since changed that policy but I still think it's a decent one. Specifically where it concerns geoblocked content. Not willing to sell here for some arbitrary reason? Then people are free to avail themselves of it as far as I am concerned, and that's precisely what I did for a while with ebooks. I'd try the regular stores, and if I hit a geoblock (which was very often during the early days of ebooks) I'd try a store that accepted PayPal (so I could just enter a bogus US address and bypass the block). But if that failed, TPB usually had what I wanted.

Copyright was intented to foster the spread of cultural works, and to encourage creators to keep on creating. Giving creators a chance to make some money with their craft is one way to encourage them thusly, but the reward is a means, not an end.

People don't tolerate rent-seeking

[Anonymous Coward]

And despite the summary, it isn't necessarily illegal to pirate in certain countries. Heck, the former USTR maintains a special list of countries you should visit if you wanted to do so.

You make your own bed

[transami]

The content companies only have themselves to blame, mostly at least. When there is no way to catch up on missed episodes the only choice is pirated or stop watching altogether. Which would they prefer? Beyond that, cable isn't cheap. We pay $100 a month for something that we used to get for free over the air. And most of the world is dirt poor, so if they can't get content for cheap... I'm not exactly poor but I'd never ordinarily pay $1.99 just to watch one episode of one show.

Flawed Study

[BenFranske]

This study is so obviously flawed in methodology it's laughable. Clearly this is just a bunch of propaganda. First, if you're surveying people around the world you also need to determine what licensed streaming services the person has access to as not all (or even any) services are available in all countries. Second, you need to consider the differences in the catalogs of licensed services from country to country. Because of antiquated business practices and agreements the catalog of Netflix (for example) varies greatly from place to place. In most places it's much worse than the US, which isn't even that great. Third, the study makes the assumption that simply viewing pirated content is in fact illegal (and they report about this with a leading statement, Did not know that simply watching....). While this may be true in some regions globally there is certainly some disagreement about whether only distribution is unlawful or whether consumption is also unlawful. This really smells like media industry propaganda to me.

Go ahead MPAA...convey your "damage"

[geekmux]

"48 (percent) said they would stop, or watch less illegal content after they were told about the damaging effects of piracy on the media industry."

As movies continue to smash box office earnings records, and leading movie stars continue to justify obscene paychecks, I'd love to know how the MPAA is going to convey those "damaging" effects.

Sure as shit doesn't seem like they're hurting, especially in the face of what appears to be rampant piracy.

Re:Go ahead MPAA...convey your "damage"

[DontBeAMoran]

What's annoying is those messages at the end of the credits, such as "This movie was produced with 15,000 people" and such.

What they will never write is "This movie was produced with 15,000 people and the three main actors got 95% of the money."

Think of the children!

[irrational_design]

"damaging effects of piracy on the media industry"

1. I believe children are damaged by the media industry.
2. Therefore the media industry needs to go away.
3. Piracy has a damaging effect on the media industry.
4. I pirate media content because it is my moral obligation to damage the media industry - for the children.

Well, that should totally hold up in court.

There MAY have been a survey,

[jenningsthecat]

but they didn't provide ANY indication of the exact questions asked, how they chose potential respondents, how they rejected potential respondents, how many results they threw away and under what criteria - you know, any of the important stuff that would allow the reader to actually evaluate whether or not the conclusions drawn have even a chance of reflecting the real state of affairs. The 'article' is a blatant, crude, substanceless, hit-and-run propaganda piece, and any thinking person should either take its conclusions with a whole cupful of salt, or dismiss them out of hand.

Re:There MAY have been a survey,

[davecb]

We call this a "push" survey. It usually ends with a question like "now that you know X, will you do Y?"

Re:Many people tired but...

[bgrahambo]

So..I wait for DVD's from the library.

That's code for "I downloaded it on BitTorrent"