LATIN AMERICA WEB PIRACY INCREASES 9% THROUGHOUT 2018-2019, ALIANZA REVEALS

The organization ALIANZA (Contra Piratería de Televisión Paga) released today key findings from MUSO’s Website Piracy Report, revealing a significant increase in web piracy across the Latin America region. Traffic to web piracy sites across Latin America increased 9% in 2018 year-on-year in comparison to the previous year, with over 14.14 billion total visits to piracy sites. The report was commissioned by ALIANZA and conducted by MUSO, a global expert on digital piracy.

Other key findings from the report include:

• There are an average of 51.60 piracy visits per person in 2018
• Streaming website piracy visits rose 13% year-on-year, while web download
visits decreased 15% year-on-year
• Highest volume of piracy visits measured was in Brazil, with 7.18 billion visits.
• Uruguay and Chile exhibit the highest demand for infringing content, per
Internet user
• Web piracy visits during the first half of 2019 (January – June) depict the same
piracy growth pattern as 2018, revealing over 7.29 billion total visits to piracy
sites.

“These findings paint a very alarming picture of how piracy continues to be a growing threat to the television industry. Piracy directly impacts the wellbeing and growth of the creative content industry. We need prioritization and collaboration from the local governments in each of these Latin American countries to help us eradicate this growing problem, by establishing legal frameworks that help us build a competitive market. Us at ALIANZA will continue applying pressure, driving awareness, and working closely with each other and authorities to bring justice to the criminals behind these operations,” said Javier Figueras, President of ALIANZA.

The Impact of Piracy

Currently, piracy is the number one threat for content creators, pay television operators and programmers in Latin America. The unauthorized retransmission of broadcast signals over the Internet has been a long-standing problem for the entertainment industry, and one that continues to grow at an alarming rate. The registered losses from piracy are valued in the billions of U.S. dollars,  impacting the industry’s ability to create, the quality of future content, and the growth of the entire marketplace. The prevalence
and impact of piracy has been proven to trickle down, impacting local economies through reduced jobs, governments through lack of taxation, and consumers by compromising their personal identifiable information.

Risks to Consumers

Pirate websites and services contain viruses, malware and other malicious software that can steal consumer information and harm not only users but also all of the contacts within their network. Criminals can spy on the consumer, stealing data such as passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information. Intruders can also potentially gain control of a user’s devices and threaten to delete their information via ransom payment demands.