• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
OpSec Security

OpSec Blog

  • Events
  • Partners
  • Brand
      • OpSec protects your entire brand continuum, covering every facet of your product’s life cycle. From conception through consumers, both online and offline, we provide you with valuable insight to protect your revenue streams, product integrity, and brand reputation.

      • Licensing
      • Fashion & Apparel
      • Luxury Goods
      • Consumer Products
      • Automotive
      • Industrial
      • Pharma & Medical Devices
      • Transaction Cards
  • Government
      • Working closely with key commercial partners, government agencies and security specialists, we have earned a reputation as innovators in combining digital solutions with optical and material sciences.

      • Revenue Protection & Tax Stamps
      • Security Foils & Labels
      • Vehicle Protection & SecureETags
  • OpSec Online
      • OpSec Online includes an industry-leading product and service line to help brands combat brand abuse across all online spaces.

      • Why Brand Protection
      • AntiCounterfeiting
      • AntiPiracy – Digital Media
      • AntiFraud – Phishing
      • AntiFraud – Malware
      • Partner Compliance
      • Online Brand Protection
      • IP Protection
      • AntiPiracy – NetResult Live Streaming Protection
      • AntiFraud – Dark Web & Cyber Intelligence
      • Managed Services
  • Resources
  • About Us
      • In a world getting more complex, OpSec helps ensure the integrity of goods and documents that build deeper and more profitable relationships.

      • Leadership
      • Associations
      • Careers
  • Contact Us

COVID-19 and the Effects on Piracy – (with Gallery)

by OpSec Security

AntiPiracy
You are here: Home / AntiPiracy / COVID-19 and the Effects on Piracy – (with Gallery)

In December of 2019, a new strain of coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan, China. In a matter of months, it had spread to several European countries. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Following the declaration from WHO, several other countries have also taken steps to contain the outbreak by shutting their borders and announcing quarantine measures.

The pandemic has led to global socio-economic disruption and has shown indications of an increase in digital piracy. OpSec Online is monitoring all key piracy channels to share observations and analysis of the developing situation. This includes granular detail on peer-to-peer piracy consumption using OpSec Online’s Global Digital Piracy Index (GDPI).

Our regular updates will provide insight into the evolving piracy landscape and provide a closer look at country specific consumption data.

IPTV: Opportunistic Sellers

IPTV operators have been using the crisis as an opportunity to position their services as the ultimate entertainment source for people in quarantine and to gain new customers.

A number are offering large discounts and even using ‘COVID 19’ and CORONA ’ as voucher codes, which has caused some controversy within the IPTV community, with some describing this as ‘tasteless’.

P2P Piracy Activity

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) piracy data is the most accurate and granular view available into global piracy consumption. It only tells part of the story, but when collected consistently for a representative sample of titles at large scale, it is a useful indicator of changes in consumption patterns and behavior.

OpSec Online collects data on billions of P2P transactions every year for Film, TV and Music content being distributed illegally through BitTorrent. This data, known as the Global Digital Piracy Index (GDPI) GDPI), covers a consistently selected set of the most popular titles in these three categories of content allowing us to measure and analyze piracy geographically as it occurs.

Please note that unique files being distributed on P2P are tracked by their unique
Hash and unique peers/users are tracked by IP address. The combination of a unique IP and Hash is what we refer to as a P2P Infringement . The data we report represents unique Infringements throughout the entire collection time period so there is no double counting or artificial inflation of the volumes. It is also important to note that this data is real transactional records and no estimate models, factors or multipliers have been applied to this data.

P2P Piracy Highlights

  • Over 1.5 BILLION Infringements collected in February and March 2020 for Film, TV and Music
  • 42 Countries , with more than 100k average weekly Infringement volume, had a 40% increase in TV piracy from the first week in Feb to the third week in March.
  • 30 Countries , with more than 100k average weekly Infringement volume, had a 40% increase in FILM piracy from the first week in Feb to the third week in March.
  • Notable increases in Europe: Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Greece and Belgium

Piracy by Country

P2P by Content Type

  • Countries : Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Greece and Belgium
  • Date Range: 02/03/2020 03/29/2020

Piracy by Content Type

Noticeable changes on social media

  • Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, VK and Reddit show no significant changes in popularity.
  • TikTok is getting more popular. There has been a lot of Coronavirus related content on TikTok. Users in countries impacted by the virus are vlogging daily. By the middle of March, TikTok had been installed almost 2billion times across the globe.
  • Twitch popularity is also rising. In March avg. viewers were 1,637,064 compared to 1,410,516 in February.

TikTok and Twitch Alexa Rank

What’s Next

This report is designed to give our customers some key observations in the piracy landscape during the COVID19 outbreak. We have a large amount of data and there are many ways to view and analyze it. Please let us know if there are specific views or data points that you are most interested in. Our customer service team will be available to work with you on specific detailed reports that relate to your content.

Stay tuned as we continue to provide additional updates over the coming weeks that will continue to focus on:

  • IPTV
  • P2P
  • Web (DDL)
  • Streaming
  • Social Media

anti-piracy, antipiracy, content, covid, illegal stream, infringement, iptv, online piracy, opsec, p2p, pandemic, piracy, Social Media, stream, tiktok, twitch, web ddl, who

About OpSec Security

In a world getting more complex, OpSec helps ensure the integrity of goods and documents that build deeper and more profitable relationships.

Related Post

OpSec Security < 1 Min Read Apr 26, 2021

Digital Piracy Across the Globe

Person on laptop

OpSec Security 2 Min Read Dec 3, 2020

The OpSec 2020 Consumer Barometer at a Glance

Over the course of 2020, the use of online services has accelerated due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As the world ad...

antiphishing, antipiracy, brand owners, Brand Protection, covid, cyberattack, cybercriminals, data breach, online, online brand protection, online consumer, phishers, phishing

Young man in mask with laptop on covid quarantine

OpSec Security 4 Min Read Apr 30, 2020

COVID-19 and the Effects on Piracy – Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of OpSec Online’s COVID-19 Piracy Impact report. As mentioned in

antipiracy, broadcaster, compliance program, illegal stream, iptv, live stream, livestream, online brand protection, online compliance, online piracy, p2p piracy, piracy, Social Media, sports, ugc

Footer

Careers

Be a part of a collaborative global team determined to fight counterfeits and build strong, lasting partnerships with our clients.

View Available Positions

Brand

  • Licensing
  • Fashion & Apparel
  • Luxury Goods
  • Consumer Products
  • Automotive
  • Industrial
  • Pharma & Medical Devices
  • Transaction Cards

Government Applications

  • Revenue Protection & Tax Stamps
  • Security Foils & Labels
  • Vehicle Protection & Secure eTags

© 2021, OpSec. All rights reserved. Modern Slavery Statement Privacy Terms Of Use Contact Us

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube Instagram