The evolving face of digital piracy: Trends and tactics in 2024

Amidst the ongoing conflict between pirates and rights holders, there arises a crucial necessity for a collaborative approach encompassing technological innovation, regulatory interventions, and public awareness initiatives to effectively counter digital piracy in India

- Siddhant Jain

Digital piracy has dramatically transformed over the past decade. From peer-to-peer filesharing services like Napster in the early 2000s to illegal streaming sites today, piracy continues to evolve and tap into new technologies to enable access to copyright-protected content without compensation to rights holders. As we delve into 2024, the face of digital piracy is transforming, with new trends and tactics reshaping the way illegal content is distributed and consumed online.

The Scale and Scope of Modern Digital Piracy

The landscape of digital piracy in 2024 looks vastly different than just a few years prior. According to recent statistics, pirated video material receives over 230 billion views per year globally. Moreover, over 80% of online piracy is now perpetrated through illegal streaming services that allow users to watch movies, TV shows, live sports, and more without paying.

The advent of high-speed internet, affordable devices like smart TVs, and easy-to-use piracy apps have made accessing this content seamless. Some applications can be easily modified using third-party add-ons to scrape links to pirated content from the internet to provide users with an experience comparable to legal streaming platforms.

Tactics like these have enabled digital piracy to explode in scale and become increasingly underground. With no central platform and various technologies like VPNs helping pirates stay anonymous, it has become an enormously lucrative yet opaque industry.

The Pervasiveness of Illegal Streaming Services