An Arcom report reveals how the majority of French people go about overcoming the blocking of pirate sites. This mainly involves two more or less known tools.
In the war between rights holders and illegal sitesthe former largely resort to blocking of the seconds. In Europe, it is a radical method supposed to fight against the increase in piracy, even if the procedure is not done without collateral victims. Technically, it works. We can see many addresses of streaming sites or offering IPTV solutions disappear suddenly, for example by blocking a widely used domain name. But at the same time, Internet users are implementing methods to continuefree access to normally paid content.
In France, we now know which ones are most used. In a report entitled Use of Internet security tools for purposes of illicit access to dematerialized goodsTHE regulator of audiovisual and digital communication Arcom shows in particular how do the French get around the blocking of pirate sites. According to the information collected, this is mainly done through two more or less known tools.
The French circumvent the blocking of illegal sites mainly in two ways
The study highlights that 81% of French people have heard of VPNAnd 49% of DNS modification. On the other hand, this does not mean that they understand their usefulness. Respectively, only 49% and 23% know what it is. Unsurprisingly, those that the report groups together under the heading “illegal consumers” represent the majority of people using these two practices. Among the 29% who “used a VPN personally in the last 12 months“, 57% engage in illicit activities on the Internet.
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These same consumers do not admit their practices, however. “When discussing the different motivations for being interested in VPNs and alternative DNS, none [utilisateur illégal] does not mention viewing illegal content“, indicates the report, before emphasizing that a “distinction quickly emerges between the declared motivations and the use of alternative VPNs and DNS on a daily basis. In use, the profiles encountered only activate the VPN overwhelmingly to view illicit content“. These results are not really surprising, but prompt reflection on thereal effectiveness of blocking pirate sites.