Piracy in 2023 – A Retrospective

A few facts and figures on piracy in 2023

As every year, we are closely following piracy trends and developments; this article presents a few facts and figures showing how the sector changed over the past year. Most of the sources are Statista, BSA | The Software Alliance, the RIAA and the MPA.

In 2023, the most pirated genres were TV shows and series and films, followed by anime (series and films), live broadcasts of sporting events and specialized sports channels.

In recent years, streaming (as opposed to direct download and torrenting, which were in vogue a few years ago) has become the most popular way to access illicit television content, a notable change. The trend became even more pronounced in 2023.

AgencePDN gets pirated content removed: see our solutions by sector.

• Piracy of live sporting events has shown a clear upward trend since 2021, with a steady increase of 30% a year
• More than 230 billion pirated TV series and films were watched in 2023.
• In 2023, more than 80% of online piracy worldwide could be attributed to illegal streaming services.
• In the European Union, streaming accounts for only 58% of piracy; 32% occurs through downloading.

Film

In 2023, 10 of the most pirated films were mostly blockbusters, some of them remakes of old films from the 1980s riding the wave of nostalgia.

• Spider-Man- No Way Home
• Thor: love and thunder
• The Batman
• Doctor Strange
• Top Gun: Maverick
• Matrix: Resurrections
• Don’t look up
• Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City
• Venom: Let There Be Carnage
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Big Tech

• In 2023, Google delisted more than 6 billion URLs for copyright infringement.
• Large companies nevertheless paid $100 million for ads on pirate operators and sites in 2023.
• 73% of that amount was paid by Amazon, Facebook and Google.

The attitude of the big tech players is therefore ambiguous; on one hand they do not want to encourage piracy, on the other it continues to be a source of revenue for them.

Television

• In 2022, piracy cost the United States $11.58 billion in the television and online film sectors.
• Television piracy accounted for 50.3% of total piracy traffic (TV shows and live events).

Software

• In Central and Eastern Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region, 57% of computer users admit to having downloaded pirated software at least once.
• In China, the percentage of illegally installed software could reach 69% by 2025, although we do not have exact statistics.
• Russia is forecasting 58% unlicensed software by 2025.
• The highest use of unlicensed software is in Bangladesh – 84%. The Asia-Pacific region generally posted high figures for the amount of unlicensed software in use.
• Developing countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Vietnam top the list for these uses that infringe copyright. This can be explained by low-income economies that are often in crisis.
• Unlicensed software is still used in most countries of the world, at rates that could represent more than 50% of installed software.
• A company's profitability can increase by 11% if software compliance is improved.
• A malware attack costs $2.4 million and takes an average of 243 days to detect. It takes about 50 days to stop.
• Malware attacks caused by unlicensed software packages can cost up to $359 billion a year.
• Users who download illegal content are 28 times more likely to be infected with malware.
• 76% of workers say they would not disclose unauthorized software use at their company.

Unlicensed use of software, including in the workplace, was therefore rising sharply in 2023; developing countries are particularly affected and forecasts suggest that this trend will continue in the coming years.

Ebooks

• Publishers lose about $300 million a year to ebook piracy.
• The 30–44 age group is the most likely to pirate books.
• Younger people, by contrast, are the biggest consumers of pirated films and music.

Music

• More than a third of people who listen to music still pirate it: 38% of listeners pirated music in 2023, and in the United States alone, that represents a loss of about $12.5 billion a year.
• More than 87% of people who want to download music now do so on their mobile device (mainly their phones).
• Stream-ripping accounts for 32% of music piracy.

Join us in February with a new monthly theme. In the meantime, if you have a film, a series, software or an ebook to protect, don't hesitate to call on our services by contacting one of our account managers; PDN has been a pioneer in cybersecurity and anti-piracy for more than ten years, and we are bound to have a solution to help you. Happy reading, and see you soon!

Share this article