A report by Digital Citizens Alliance and NAGRA released on Thursday reveals the serious and increasing harms that pirate subscription Internet Protocol TV (PS IPTV) imposes on content creators, programming distributors, and consumers.
"Money for Nothing: The Billion-Dollar Pirate Subscription IPTV Business" details the consequential scope of these increasingly sophisticated criminal operations, which combine stolen video content, readily available streaming technology, and enabling capabilities provided by legitimate businesses (such as credit card processors and hosting services) to create highly polished consumer offerings.
The report finds that approximately 9 million U.S. consumers subscribe to PS IPTV, typically for only $10-15 per month. Because none of that revenue, totaling at least $1 billion per year, makes its way back to content creators, the profit margins are astounding: between 56 (for the 3,500+ retail services in operation) and 85 percent (for wholesalers). Money for nothing, indeed.
These illegal services obviously steal from both programmers and legitimate distributors. They also harm consumers, both directly and indirectly.
These illegal services obviously steal from both programmers and legitimate distributors. They also harm consumers, both directly and indirectly.
- Directly, by involving them, perhaps unwittingly, in criminal conduct; revealing their personal information to unsavory actors; exposing their devices to malware; and potentially sharing their Internet connections with unknown third parties.
- Indirectly, by reducing incentives for the creation of (uncompensated) new content and raising prices for legal offerings.
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