As per a report by Muso, tv has roughly 46.3% sector share of world visits to piracy web sites, adopted by publishing at 27.5%, movies at 12.9%, music at 7%, and software program at 6.2%, globally.

An epidemic named digital piracy!

The media and leisure industry in India grew by Rs 17,300 crore, at a compound annual development price (CAGR) of 8.1% to achieve Rs 2,32,000 crore, as per a report by FICCI-EY. The filmed leisure phase grew by 14% to achieve Rs 19,700 crore in 2023. With greater than 1,796 movies being launched in 2023 and recording a income of Rs 12,000 billion, movies proceed to be one of many prime targets of piracy. Moreover, the content material from Hindi GECs and net collection have additionally surfaced on social media platforms and short-video format platforms, permitting customers to look at the content material totally free which in any other case they might have needed to pay a premium for. Spiderman: No Way Home and Game of Thrones have been essentially the most pirated films and most pirated net collection in India in 2022.

According to experiences by the Press Information Bureau, the movie business faces a lack of as much as Rs 20,000 crore resulting from piracy, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting took steps to test movie piracy within the nation. The modification within the Cinematograph Act in 2023 addressed the problems regarding movie certification, together with the problem of unauthorised recording and exhibition of movies and movie piracy by transmission of unauthorised copies on the Internet and imposed strict penalties for piracy. The modification contains strict punishment of a minimal of three months imprisonment and a nice of Rs 3 lakh which might be prolonged as much as three years imprisonment and a nice as much as 5 % of the audited gross manufacturing value. “Piracy is a big menace for the filmed entertainment industry and it has been a big revenue drainer for the industry. While the audience gets to watch films illegally, it is the producers who lose revenue, and the entire cycle is disrupted. We need to take stringent control of the situation. The government has taken steps to curb digital piracy and I hope the effect of the steps does add to deterring piracy,” Girish Johar, producer and movie commerce analyst, mentioned.

Queries despatched to Sony Entertainment, Viacom18, Zee and Meta remained unanswered until the time of publishing the story.

Moreover, the piracy of content material of Hindi normal leisure channels (GECs) has additionally been a priority for the channels. According to consultants, with the content material being accessible on social media platforms, the darkish net or different platforms have resulted in viewership dilution. The results of viewership dilution has been the shrinking of advertising moolah because the income from promoting is predicated on tv score factors (TRP). “There are two broad revenue streams for a GEC channel, one is advertising money while the other is subscription revenue. If viewers are watching the content free of cost, then they don’t require a subscription to watch the content on television which is a significant loss amid the struggles of conventional TV growth and cord-cutting. Piracy is further harming the revenue potential of conventional TV,” Ashsih Golwalkar, a senior media advisor, highlighted.

Experts added that piracy additionally has a cascading impact on content material funding. With the flicks being accessible totally free on digital platforms, customers wouldn’t decide to pay a premium on totally different TV channels. Movie and TV piracy in India resulted in a income lack of $2.3 billion in 2022, as per a report by knowledge analysis and analytics agency Ampere.

A struggle on piracy

India has been taking steps in direction of battling piracy with amendments to the Cinematograph Act of 1952. However, with social media platforms being the hotspot for piracy-related actions, consultants consider tips have to be introduced in to curb piracy on these platforms. “I believe a three-layered piracy protection system is required. Firstly, we need strong guidelines and policies on what is permissible as user-generated content. The generation of digital content creators needs that clarity today. Secondly, there should be ownership of social media platforms to control digital piracy as well. Many of them are using AI-based tools to control digital piracy at a platform level. Lastly, there should be an ease of reporting for end consumers to identify pirated content. I feel this is missing today,” Sreedhar Prasad, former head of Internet enterprise, KPMG and Internet enterprise advisor to startups, highlighted.

Additionally, piracy is an issue that your entire world is combating in opposition to. Experts have regarded piracy as an epidemic which is harming content material industries throughout the globe..“There are multiple ways of pirating content, one of them being user uploads wherein individual accounts unknowingly upload content. GEC platforms, nowadays, have their streaming platforms from where the content is cracked and uploaded to these platforms. Fan accounts on social media platforms are one of the biggest destinations for pirated content with them being operated from abroad. It continues to be an ongoing battle between the media companies and perpetrators,” Golwalkar added.

Social media platforms have additionally taken steps with copyright legal guidelines turning into stringent. The legal guidelines permit customers to establish pirated or copyrighted content material on the platform and get it eliminated to keep away from income loss and viewership loss. “We work hard to balance the rights of copyright holders with the creative pursuits of the YouTube community. It’s not up to YouTube to decide who ‘owns the rights’ to content, which is why we give copyright holders tools to make copyright claims and uploaders tools to dispute claims that are made incorrectly. When a copyright holder notifies us of a video that infringes on their copyright, we remove the content promptly in accordance with the law, and terminate the accounts of repeat offenders,” a YouTube spokesperson, mentioned.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook