Survey: APAC content piracy rises
May 2, 2024
By Colin Mann
Findings from the annual piracy consumer survey conducted by YouGov for the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) suggest that despite a decrease in piracy on pirate TV boxes, pirate apps and streaming or torrent websites, there has been an increase in the incidence of piracy across the region, climbing from 52 per cent in 2023 to 59 per cent this year due to more piracy on social media and messaging platforms.
Particularly concerning are the increases in the Philippines (12 per cent yoy) and Vietnam (13 per cent yoy), with both countries also now having the region’s highest incidences of piracy amongst their populations, at 70 per cent and 71 per cent, respectively.
The dominance of social media and messaging platforms as the conduit to piracy not only remains, but has grown more severe, increasing by 14 per cent across the region. Meanwhile, only 13 per cent of consumers in the region now access pirated content
Awareness of the negative consequences of piracy (89 per cent) remains extremely high across the region, with consumers being most aware of criminals profiting from pirate services, the risks of malware and the damage piracy causes to local industry being most prominent. And the impact of judicial or administrative orders requiring ISPs to block access to pirate sites is clear, with Indonesian (59 per cent), Vietnamese (54 per cent), Malaysian (42 per cent) and Singaporean (28 per cent) consumers saying they have either stopped entirely or rarely access pirate sites as a direct result of sites being blocked.
The survey shows a dramatic increase in the number of consumers in Asia-Pacific both searching for and accessing pirate content via social media or messaging services. CAP is continuing to work with the major platforms across the region to address this issue but remains concerned with the lack of response from some platforms, notably Telegram.
“We are greatly encouraged by the continuing downward trend of consumers accessing pirate content from illegal websites, which reflects the work done over many years in the region by industry and governments,” commented Matt Cheetham, General Manager of CAP. “However, it is clear that social media and messaging platforms must do more to prevent their services being used to find and access pirate content.”