P2P Piracy is Alive and Growing, Research Suggests (torrentfreak.com)

From a report: In recent years Hollywood and other entertainment sources have focused their enforcement efforts on pirate streaming sites and services. According to several reports, streaming sites get more traffic than their P2P counterparts, with the latter being almost exclusively BitTorrent related. While the rise of online streaming sites can't be denied, a new research report from anti-piracy outfit Irdeto shows that P2P remains very relevant. In fact, it's still the dominant piracy tool in many countries. Irdeto researched site traffic data provided by an unnamed web analytics partner. The sample covers web traffic to 962 piracy sites in 19 countries where P2P was most used. This makes it possible to see how P2P site visits compare to those of pirate streaming sites.

Comments

Anyone shocked?

[DMJC]

Is this really surprising? There's still tons of software out there that makers no longer support or distribute, tons of TV shows that Netflix doesn't stock. As fragmentation of the online streaming market grows (Disney Online) Expect piracy to grow back in as people's $10/month subscriptions fail to deliver them the content they want and rather than pay $80+ for 8+ different streaming services they just go back to piracy.

Re:Anyone shocked?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you and some other are alluding to is a trend we've been seeing for some time now. Housing either being gobbled up by 'property management' companies and rented/leased, 'Home Owners Associations' imposing such draconic 'rules' that not only can stand in the way of home ownership, but literally take someone's home away from them because of 'penalty fees' imposed by these non-authoritative 'associations'. Barriers put in the way of people obtaining financing to purchase homes (especially for minorities, but also white people -- if you're an 'undesirable' white, that is). Leasing instead of purchasing vehicles. 'Streaming services' being pushed instead of encouraging people to own legal copies. Companies like Microsoft wanting to offer software, even the operating system itself, as a 'monthly service' instead of actually owning a copy yourself. Even employment, if you think about it: companies having the majority of their workforce as 'temps' or 'contract workers' or 'contingent workers', basically them renting you from a parasite 'staffing company', and you can be sent away with a mere phone call and you have NO say in the matter. And more examples than I have time to ennumerate. If you look at the bigger picture, you see the pattern: 'The Rich' wanting to be the sole owners of just about everything, leaving everyone else with barely the clothes on their backs, to pay, pay, pay in perpetuity, never owning anything of value. Words like 'Feudalism' come to mind.

People in general would do well to wake up, realize what's happening, and fight against it. Believe you me, we do not want to live in a world where the common person owns nothing, and has to pay a fee every month to The Rich 1% just to have a roof over their heads, transportation of your own, and the basics of living.

Re:Wrong. P2P is NOT (at least usually) "piracy"!!

[Kjella]

Are you drunk or high or something?

"Copyright piracy" is a legal term

No. Never has been.

In other words, "piracy" basically means people who make copies and sell them.

Bullshit. It's been known as "pirate copying" and "pirate copies" since we were trading floppies in the school yard 30 years ago, obviously completely non-commercial. You just made up your own terms, your own definitions and is going on a rant because nobody gets it "right" even though you're the one trying to redefine everything.

I just want to actually -OWN- what I buy

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't own anything anymore. You can only purchase access to view/listen/use it through some service... services aren't always available, and even when they are, the internet isn't always available, and even when it is, your hardware might not be up to snuff.

With my personal collection, barring some out-of-left-field tech issue, I know it's going to work every time and be right there where I want it.

With online services, the price might increase, there might be updates or patches that force you to cough up personal information.

It's like, no... I just want to give you money, and then you give me a product, and we part ways. Not, I give you money, and then you keep spying on me and sending me ads and essentially "following" through the cloud.

Wow this rant went all over the place, but seriously, for all it's advantages, I'm fed up with streaming anything.

Re:Streaming services too expensive

[war4peace]

Actually, nope.
Here in my country, east of the Iron Courtain, Netflix is 7 bucks a month, cheapest tier. Tidal is 5 bucks a month. Same with Spotify.
They're not too expensive.
Geolocking does exist as a matter of fact, and it's one of the main reasons piracy still exists.
We (my people) have been treated a second class people for far too long , and we won't have it anymore. So when Netflix comes and says "you can't have this content that others do because $bullshit_reason*", we don't like it, and stop using it.
*$bullshit_reason could be, for example, a certain movie or TV series had their broadcasting rights sold to some asshole local company which sits on them trying to boost prices, or to an actual broadcaster which is only interested in maximizing profit. This results in many, if not most good movies or TV series being unavailable in my country. Anecdotal evidence: 10 of my top 10 preferred moviesw ere unavailable on netflix for my country (or at all!) due to broadcasting rights or movie owner not wanting to sell rights to Netflix. Hulu isn't available in my country, at all. Tidal has a "hip-hop problem", pushing their own music agenda despite the fact that I am a metalhead and for months I have only listened to metal on their platform. Yet, every fucking time I open Tidal, the main page and all their recommendation revolve around "JayZ's Playlist" and "Nicki Minaj" and other crap I simply DO NOT WANT. I perceive that behavior as being disrespectful - so I cancelled my subscription.

The pirate alternative: Torrent websites (private trackers):
- have a much wider selection of content
- have HIGH QUALITY content (Blu-Ray, 4K, etc)
- Are very fast (5-10 minutes) to download pretty much anything (local peers abound)
- Don't push their own agenda
- Have most content available IMMEDIATELY after release (especially music and TV series; for movies you generally need to wait a month or so for highest quality)
- Have a large variety of good subtitles in a myriad languages, readily attached to movies and series
- Do carry obscure and "rare" content (which I can't legally buy, stream or rent from anywhere)

I am all for legal methods of consuming content, and I am ready to pay for it. But when, for example, the FIFA World Cup 2018 took place this summer, I was unable to find an easy way to legally livestream matches. I was ready to pay-per-view or subscribe to bundles, but none were available for my country. The official broadcaster for my country had horrible service, thir website was down or locking up most of the time, it was unusable. And there was no alternative... except watching pirate livestreams which worked perfectly.

Life finds a way... so does consuming media content in a timely manner.

Re:Competing with free

[Opportunist]

This is exactly the problem with content: People care mostly about convenience.

You know what caused the switch from Piratebay to Netflix? Convenience. Nobody gives a fuck about 10 bucks a month, what they care about is ease of use. Click it and it works. Netflix managed to be more convenient than TPB. That's all.

That's also the reason that certain content gets copied like crazy. Not even, but especially when prohibitive DRM is in place. You might notice that those always-online games are among those that get copied the most. Why? Convenience. If I buy a game that I then cannot play because the activation server is overloaded, tinker and toy for a few hours until I give up, download it from TPB and just play it.

Next time I omit the step that is of no use to me.