At the time of streaming and torrenting, one might think that the sale of physical media with pirated content is no longer popular. It is quite the opposite. As our colleagues from the Torrent Freak site report, sales of USB keys and hard drives with pirated films or series are working like thunder on the web.
In the 90s, you may have lived through the golden age of piracy on physical media. Cassettes and floppy disks were traded secretly and between individuals, then they gave way to CD-ROMs and other larger forms of storage.
Finally, piracy on physical media has gradually lost ground with the rise of piracy on the Internet. From Napster to Kazaa via eMule or Megaupload, illegal torrenting and streaming services have taken hold among users as the easiest way to obtain pirated content.
Nowadays, one would therefore think that the demand for piracy on physical media is ridiculously low. Well, it’s quite the opposite. As revealed by our colleagues from the Torrent Freak site, we can find today on the web many offers for “handmade” USB keys or hard drives. A roundabout way to say that they are filled with pirated series and films.
Yes, USB sticks with pirated movies are still selling very well
If you want to see the phenomenon for yourself, just take a look at Etsy, a site specializing in the sale of handicrafts and homemade items. By simply typing “USB movie sticks” in the search bar, one can find dozens and dozens of offers for “personalized” USB keys filled with pirated films or series. On the French version of the site, the selections are rather limited (only three pages), but on the US version, it is a festival with more than 10 pages of illicit products.
You can find absolutely everything there, such as USB keys containing:
- a complete collection of all Clint Eastwood movies
- All the Marvel movies
- Selections containing 80 action or horror films
- The Complete Simpsons or South Park
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From 20 to 1200 € depending on the number of films/series
Depending on the content, prices can vary widely, from €26 for a selection of old TV shows to €92 for a USB key containing 200 recent films. You can also find hard drives of several gigabytes or terabytes of films and series. In particular, we saw an advertisement for a 12TB hard drive with more than 10,000 movies for an astronomical amount of $1,200.
Of course, selling a flash drive with pirated content is illegal and a gross violation of copyright. Of course, Etsy is not the only platform concerned by this phenomenon which particularly worries the anti-piracy coalition ACE. Its leader, Jan Van Voorn, told Torrent Freak that he was working with Etsy and other sites to end the practice. “These are examples of sellers circumventing the settings and violating the terms of service. This is an issue we report to platforms like Etsy,” did he declare. As a reminder, Amazon recently filed a complaint like several sites that resell DVDs containing pirated Prime Video series.