The piracy arms race

James Myring, director of media and internet research at BDRC Continental, comments on the ever-growing world of piracy: “We know piracy is big when even the porn industry is worried about it”…

It’s not quite a case of XXX marks the spot, but we know piracy is big when even the porn industry is worried about it (a recent article in The Economist highlighted how piracy is causing concern). And it’s not just porn and music – films, games, TV programmes and newspapers are all increasingly sourced and distributed online. As internet connected TVs make their way into Britons’ sitting rooms, there is a real chance that the potential impact of piracy will increase.

The precise extent of piracy and its impact on legal sales is difficult to gauge – survey data is questionable due to the issue of respondent honesty (piracy, of course, is illegal). Also, just because content has been pirated does not mean a sale has been lost. However, what we can say with confidence is that piracy is already a big thing – especially amongst the young. It seems that almost a whole generation of young people are now ‘content pirates’, at least to some degree, and are not used to paying for digital content. The scale of piracy has led to recent changes in legislation with the Digital Economy Bill.

To get under the skin of this sensitive (and illegal) subject we are currently conducting research. Whilst this is still ongoing and findings are not complete, it is very obvious that we cannot simply divide the population into pirates and non-pirates.

Firstly, there is a relatively small number of what we call SupaPirates. They are characterised by their extensive piracy – linked to their IT expertise and passion for (generally, but not only), music, games or films. Particularly interesting is the way that these SupaPirates act as distribution hubs in their own right. Within their circle of friends many of them pass on very significant volumes of pirated material – typically on memory sticks or hard drives. People love to give and receive gifts, and the act of passing on pirated material can be an important way of cementing friendships.

This second hand piracy is huge. Many people who don’t directly pirate themselves from peer to peer sites receive very significant quantities of pirated material from friends or family who pirate directly. Second hand distribution essentially multiplies the impact of direct piracy, and is almost undetectable. In our research, we’re finding that it is not especially unusual for illegally downloaded content to be passed on to at least six or seven friends – who then in turn may distribute it further.

What does this all mean for content producers and providers as well as Government bodies who are increasingly concerned about piracy? Deterrents that may be effective at preventing the casual pirates may not have the same effect on SupaPirates, who we’re finding often pass on large quantities of pirated material second hand to friends and family.

More casual pirates (those that rely more on receiving second hand pirated material and at most pirate directly themselves only occasionally) can be put off by the fear of catching PC-based viruses in the process of piracy and the potential danger of being caught. However, SupaPirates tend to be IT savvy enough to be quite confident that they can avoid viruses. Legal sanction could concern them, but once again they are often confident that they can use their IT skills to avoid detection.

It looks as if we will be entering a kind of piracy arms race in which a more forceful campaign to assert intellectual copyright legislation will scare off more casual pirates, but where a hard core resort to ever more sophisticated methods to continue to pirate.

James will be speaking at this year’s MRG conference in Malta from 3rd to 6th November. Click here for more information or to book your ticket.