On April 7 Verimatrix held a Webinar on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on video piracy, and conducted a post-session survey with some eye-opening results. Fully three quarters of the respondents are anticipating changes to their businesses due to the pandemic.
The session was hosted by Verimatrix, and included COO Asaf Ashkenazy and myself. We took our turns presenting the current state of piracy and some early observations about corona’s impact.
Read the full report from Verimatrix, which answers some questions posed by Webinar attendees, and includes the survey results.
Watch the Webinar on demand (Approx 30 minutes).
Why it matters
The Webinar was an effort to place some early findings into the public record, and it confirmed some anecdotal suspicions while exposing some past conventional wisdom as a possible smoke screen.
It was not hugely surprising that nearly 20 percent of the respondents were planning on investing in new technologies to optimize operations, and another 20% to increase their security measures.
It did surpise us that only 13% of the respondents were concerned about credential sharing by consumers (while a higher percentage was concerned about professional pirates that steal passwords); while on the other hand, almost half were concerned about illegal redistribution.
It also shows that, behind the scenes, video providers do recognize “real” piracy – and that the conventional meme of credential sharing as piracy is maybe just a good cover story.
