The Struggle Against Video Piracy

A newly published report this week highlights the continuing struggle of the video industry around the world with the darker side of the services business.

The report, sponsored in part by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and highlighted by Streaming Media, reminds the industry of the enormous cost burden of digital piracy,  estimating that global online piracy costs the U.S. economy $29.2 billion in lost revenue every year. Streaming video piracy is by far the largest part of that, with over 80% of all piracy due to illegal streaming.

A couple of other key conclusions from the report document are:

• Overall, approximately 26.6 billion viewings of U.S.-produced movies and 126.7 billion viewings of U.S.-produced TV episodes are pirated digitally each year, mostly from outside the U.S.
• Digital video piracy not only causes lost revenues to the U.S. content production sector, it also results in losses to the U.S. economy of between 230,000 and 560,000 jobs and between $47.5 billion and $115.3 billion in reduced gross domestic product (GDP) each year. While piracy remains a problem in the U.S.,  analysis indicates that most of these losses (223,000 to 541,000 jobs and $45.7 billion to $111.1 billion in lost GDP) are due to digital video piracy of U.S. content by non-U.S. residents.

These kinds of figures are a stark reminder of the cost of inadequate protection in video service distribution. Security still needs to be at the core of the business mechanics for  every video service  - at least primarily because of this critical connection to the management of revenue streams and the enforcement of service business models. Of course, EZDRM would love to help you out with any questions you have on these topics.

The full report is available for download here.

Thanks for reading!

The team at EZDRM
Digital Rights Management. Simplified.