Illegal practices of audiovisual content, symbolized by the piracy of sporting events, films and series, declined last year. ARCOM and ARCEP welcome this in their latest repository of digital uses.
Under the impetus of ARCOM, the audiovisual and digital regulator, the illegal consumption of audiovisual content is on the decline. This is what emerges from the latest report on digital uses, published this week. The efforts of the regulatory authority, which has made the fight against piracy one of its main priorities, have therefore not been in vain.
Consumption of pirated content down on all audiovisual content
Perhaps there is a cause and effect link between the increase in the number of users of video on demand by subscription in France, and the decline in the illicit consumption of audiovisual content. Still, this latest drop was observed on all three types of audiovisual content in 2022.
Looking at the illegal consumption rate by type of content last year, we see that illegal practices have dropped:
- from 29 to 23% for films between 2021 and 2022,
- from 25 to 19% for TV series,
- and 30-22% for live sports broadcasts.
That was for the mass of content. With regard to Internet users engaged in illicit practices, the figure drops to 13% for films, 9% for TV series and only 4% for sports content. On this last point of sports broadcasts, ARCOM recalls having multiplied measures to block sites which illegally broadcast matches or competitions, in collaboration with the judicial authorities and ISPs, measures which are today sufficiently dissuasive for a large majority of users, who prefer legal channels.
Users of pirate sites increasingly faced with blocking
To get a better idea of the evolution of consumption and this decline in the consumption of pirated sports content, ARCOM conducted a survey and found that 67% of users of sites broadcasting matches, races or events through illegal streaming know people or faced site blockages in the first half of 2022.
And on average, an Internet user accustomed to this pirated content was blocked from entering a site 7.3 times in H1 2022, which testifies to the efforts undertaken by the various authorities to fight against this practice, the shortfall reached billions of euros for the various industries impacted.
Source : ARCEP
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