No matter how hard the big streaming companies try, internet piracy will never seem to stop completely. However, times have changed and big companies have managed to find convenient ways to reduce internet piracy. The movie and music industries have found ways that can benefit the artists, filmmakers, actors, and consumers as well. This is through the different applications and platforms that have a subscription-based system that allows people to watch, listen, and enjoy anything they like for a cheap and affordable cost. Nonetheless, piracy is still ongoing and in some cases increasing, nowadays. Read on to learn more about the reasons behind the rampant rise of internet piracy.
Paying for Something You Don’t Need
Most people tend to pay for content they don’t need to get the content they’re interested in. This is one of the mistakes that people worldwide make daily. Consumers worldwide might have the mentality of wanting something they don’t need just for the sake of having it. But when they start receiving hundreds of shows, movies, and songs that they never listen to, people realize that the variety is just not worth the cost anymore. If someone wants to watch one or two hit movies, series, or listen to specific music genres, then paying for it and getting thousands of other pieces of content is just not appealing. Even if it’s cheap and affordable, customers prefer getting it for free to avoid the hassle of dealing with content they don’t care about. This is one of the reasons why people continue to turn to piracy.
The Encryption System Has Flaws
Every streaming service has an encryption system that has flaws. The encryption system is called Widevine and Google developed it for streaming services and content creators. Unfortunately, piracy experts have found a way to expose Widevine vulnerabilities to download content and decrypt it to have a format that is ready for distribution. These encryption protocols were made to prevent people from downloading a show, movie, or song from the streaming platforms without paying for it. But piracy has found a loophole in the system because it had flaws in its design. This made pirating any sort of content possible and it made internet piracy relevant regardless of the secure encryption system that was designed to prevent it. Even though only the least protected encrypted content can be downloaded, it still plays a huge role in ongoing piracy.
Making the Same Mistakes
Streaming services and big content producers are currently making the same mistakes that cable companies made many years ago. Streaming services and content producers didn’t learn from past mistakes and they weren’t able to prevent themselves from repeating the same mistakes in the age of streaming. This mistake was when content producers decided to take a piece of the pie in the streaming world. Instead of having one or two primary streaming services, producers and big companies decided to launch their own streaming platforms.
This means that specific movies and shows that were produced by them were taken off of all streaming services. It was a way for big companies and content producers to stop sharing revenues with third-party platforms that streamed their content. This licensing issue created problems worldwide because some of these new streaming services aren’t available in most countries. This means that a specific market was cut off from their favorite shows, movies, or music so they resorted back to piracy to get the content they wanted.
It Became Too Costly
We’ve mentioned before the mistake that streaming services made and that it became too costly for consumers. When people started to subscribe to different streaming services and platforms, this made them pay more for content than they usually did in the past. This was a huge problem for thousands of consumers, even though each subscription alone was trivial and cheap. However, if you add up the subscription costs of 5 or 6 streaming services, then the costs start to rise, making people switch back to piracy. The numerous licensing deals and the wide variety of streaming platforms made people go back to pirated content instead.
It’s incredible how newly released theatrical movies and hit songs can be pirated so quickly after they come out. The internet is an entity that even the biggest companies in the world cannot control. People will always find a way to make the process of getting their content quick, convenient, and free. Even though subscription-based services are affordable, subscribing to multiple ones isn’t appealing. If streaming services continue to make the same mistakes as old cable companies, then internet piracy will never go away or die out completely.
