Parks Associates: Piracy and account sharing cost US pay-TV and OTT operators more than $9 billion in 2019 and forecasted to reach $66 billion worldwide by 2022
Industry report examines trends, business models, and best practices to identify and fight piracy
Dallas, Texas, January 14, 2020 – A new Parks Associates report finds that the value of pirate video services accessed by pay-TV and non-pay-TV consumers will exceed $67 billion worldwide by 2023. Video Piracy: Ecosystem, Risks, and Impact estimates that if just 10% of pay-TV subscribers discontinued pay-TV services in favor of video delivered by pirates, the 2023 loss to those operators could approach $6 billion.
Video Piracy: Ecosystem, Risks, and Impact examines trends in content piracy and methods for stopping these emerging piracy methods and provides a five-year forecast for the impact of piracy on the video industry. The report also includes real-world case studies about several piracy cases by entities which operate at an industrial scale. This report complements a 2019 Parks Associates report which estimated that of the $9.1 billion lost in 2019 to credential sharing by US video providers, 28% – or about $2.5 billion – was lost due to piracy. This $2.5 billion loss is part of an $8.4 billion overall loss to piracy in North America.
“The rest of the $8.4 billion can be attributed to piracy by other means, such as theft of video content from production, from distribution, from jail-broken consumer devices, and from hosting by other pirates,” said Steven Hawley, Contributing Analyst, Parks Associates, and Managing Director of Piracy Monitor.
The report finds most of the publicly acknowledged antipiracy efforts by US pay-TV operators currently focus on detecting and reducing credential sharing and account abuse. Credential sharing results in significant lost revenue to pay-TV operators; a Parks Associates survey of US broadband households determined 5% used someone else’s credentials to access a pay-TV service and 6% did so to access an online video service.
“More than 12.5 million pay-TV households accessed pirate video in the US in 2019, a low number compared to the Asia and Pacific region, where there are many more users but lower ARPU,” said Elizabeth Parks, President, Parks Associates. “Video providers are carefully monitoring this threat and establishing dedicated teams and solutions to respond to piracy.”
“Credential sharing falls into two categories. Most sharing is casual, with no intent to profit,” Hawley said. “But the bigger risk is from pirates that purchase large stolen consumer databases via the ‘Dark Web’ and use automation to discover penetrable end user accounts.”
For information on Video Piracy: Ecosystem, Risks, and Impact, contact sales@parksassociates.com. To schedule an interview with an analyst or to request specific research data, please contact Elizabeth Parks at eparks@parksassociates.com, 972-490-1113.
About Parks Associates
Parks Associates is an internationally recognized market research and consulting company specializing in emerging consumer technology products and services. Founded in 1986, Parks Associates creates research capital for companies ranging from Fortune 500 to small start-ups through market reports, primary studies, consumer research, custom research, workshops, executive conferences, and annual service subscriptions.
The company’s expertise includes digital media and platforms, entertainment and gaming, home networks, Internet and television services, digital health, mobile applications and services, support services, consumer apps, advanced advertising, consumer electronics, energy management, and home control systems and security.
Each year, Parks Associates hosts industry webcasts, the CONNECTIONS™ Conference Series, Connected Health Summit: Engaging Consumers, Smart Energy Summit: Engaging the Consumer, and Future of Video: OTT, Pay TV, and Digital Media. http://www.parksassociates.com
About Piracy Monitor
Piracy Monitor is an independent informational resource for the Media and Entertainment industry and the business and technology communities that support it. Its mission to inform readers about the piracy problem, how it happens, the damage it causes, what’s being done about it, and about countermeasures and practices that help reduce the associated risks. Piracy Monitor consists of the Piracy Monitor E-Newsletter available by free subscription, the Piracy Monitor Web site, which provides a news feed, research resources and thought leadership from industry stake-holders. Piracy Monitor is supported by industry sponsors that share these concerns. Piracy Monitor also publishes an annual category analysis report with quarterly updates. Visit https://piracymonitor.org. Subscribe to the newsletter.
