TV shows on exclusive subscription services like Netflix and HBO are popular but expensive, and have led to an increase in digital piracy, a new study has concluded.
Initially, the increase in the use of services like Netflix and Amazon Prime led to a decrease in the number of people illegally downloading or watching shows for free.
However the report, which looks at the usage of torrent sharing websites like BitTorrent, found that the trend has changed.
Cam Cullen, the Vice President of Global Marketing at Sandvine, a research company found that between 2011 and 2015, saw a massive decline in usage within the US, dropping from 52 percent to under 27 percent. But not anymore.
The number of people using BitTorrent has increased by ten percent and doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Cullen says it’s because exclusive content is being divided across multiple streaming services, stretching people’s purses.
‘More sources than ever are producing “exclusive” content available on a single streaming or broadcast service – think Game of Thrones for HBO, House of Cards for Netflix, The Handmaid’s Tale for Hulu, or Jack Ryan for Amazon,’ Cullen wrote.
‘To get access to all of these services, it gets very expensive for a consumer, so they subscribe to one or two and pirate the rest.’
Earlier this year Facebook launched a crackdown on illegal streaming with a blanket ban on sales of Kodi boxes – these are open-source streaming platforms frequently used to pirate things like Premier League football matches.
Things don’t appear to be changing though, with big names like Crunchyroll, VRV, and Apple all producing original series that customers have to sign up for, and Disney launching its own streaming service.
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