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Facts and figures about piracy in 2023

As we do every year, we keep a close eye on piracy trends and developments; this article presents a few facts and figures showing how the sector is evolving in 2023. Most sources come from Statista, BSA/The Software Alliance, the RIAA or the MPA.

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

In the recent years, streaming (as opposed to direct downloading and torrenting, which were very significant a few years ago) has become the most popular method of accessing illegal TV content.

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

Movies

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

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

Big Tech

  • In 2023, Google dereferenced over 6 billion URLs for copyright infringement.
  • However, major companies paid $100 million for advertising on pirate operators and sites in 2023.
  • 73% of this sum was paid by Amazon, Facebook and Google.

The attitude of the major digital players is therefore ambiguous: on the one hand, they don’t want to encourage piracy; on the other, it continues to represent a source of revenue for them.

Television

  • In 2022, piracy cost the U.S. $11.58 billion in TV and film online losses.
  • TV piracy accounted for 50.3% of total piracy traffic (TV shows and live events).

Software

  • In Central and Eastern Europe and 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 exact statistics are not available.
    Russia predicts 58% unlicensed software by 2025.
  • Bangladesh has the highest use of unlicensed software – 84%. The Asia-Pacific region generally scored highly in terms of the amount of unlicensed software in use.
  • Developing countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Vietnam top the list for copyright infringement. This situation can be explained by low-income economies that are often in crisis.
  • Unlicensed software is still used in the majority of the world’s countries at rates and 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 around 50 days to stop.
  • Malware attacks due to unlicensed software packages can cost up to $359 billion a year.
  • Users who download illegal content multiply the risk of malware infection by 28.
  • 76% of workers say they will not disclose unauthorized use of software in their company.

Unlicensed use of software, including in the workplace is on the rise in 2023; developing countries are particularly affected, and predictions suggest that this trend will continue over the next few years.

Electronic books

  • Publishers lose around $300 million a year to e-book piracy.
  • The 30-44 age group is the most likely to pirate books.
  • Younger people are the biggest consumers of pirated films and music.

Music

  • More than a third of music listeners are still pirating. 38% of music will still be pirated in 2023, and in the USA alone, this represents a loss of around $12.5 billion a year.
  • Over 87% of people who want to download music now do so via their mobile devices (mainly their phones).
  • Streaming-ripping accounts for 32% of music piracy.

Come read us in February to discover our new monthly theme. In the meantime, if you have a film, series, software or e-book 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 over ten years, and we’re bound to have a solution to help you. Happy reading and see you soon!

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