In-Stat says efforts to stop the 12 billion illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) downloads occurring annually in the US have come up short. In-Stat believes content owners and service providers need to shift from content protection to a two-pronged content monetisation strategy consisting of digital rights information management and offering a better user experience than illegal P2P services.

"What is needed is a new approach to monetising digital content including moving a relatively small group of consumer households that do the bulk of P2P downloading (power users), to legal services," says Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst.

Research by In-Stat found the following:

– US broadband households download 14 billion videos each year; 85 per cent are illegal.

– In-Stat sees watermarking becoming a growing technology to track licensed usage rights.

– A migration of power user households from P2P to legal video services would generate $1.4 billion in subscription revenue and $1.1 billion in advertising revenue.

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Categories: CA/DRM, Content, Research Library