Pirated Movie Streaming Sites Earn IDR 18.6 Trillion from Ads per Year

A study reveals sites and apps featuring pirated serials and films rake in an estimated US$1.3 billion from advertising each year.

The non-profit online security organization Digital Citizens Alliance and anti-piracy firm White Bullet said they found at least 84,000 illegal entertainment sites.

Launching NDTV, Monday (16/8/2021), their study emphasizes the difficulty of the issue of piracy for Hollywood film studios and digital advertising distribution companies.

This situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which has seen more people stream movies and television shows.

"Piracy causes direct harm to creators and others who lose revenue when their content is stolen," the report said.

"And big brands face reputational risk when their ads appear on illicit websites," they added.

The Emergence of Big Company Ads

The White Bullet determines the scope of ad revenue for pirated content by monitoring the most popular and active sites and apps between June 2020 and May 2021.

They then drilled into about 6,000 sites and 900 apps, and monitored the ads that appeared. Big brands also appear to appear on these sites.

Brands, such as Amazon, Facebook and Google, account for about 4 percent of ads on pirated websites and 24 percent for illegal entertainment apps.

The lion's share of overall advertising is in the form of sponsored content, which often takes the form of "clickbait" links that look like they're about to lead to interesting news or videos.

Meanwhile, some of the other ads contain smaller companies, adult content, scams, and malware.

Main Source of Malware

The two organizations added that these sites are a major source of malware, and some ads are vulnerable to hackers using to steal personal information or carry out ransomware attacks.

Furthermore, agen judi togel online terpercaya it is mentioned that any advertisements on pirated websites and apps, are almost certainly unintentional. But there is evidence that companies can stop it if they are vigilant.

"Failure to choose a tool that assesses piracy risk in real-time means advertisers are funding criminals — and that's a billion-dollar problem," said Peter Szyszki, CEO and founder of White Bullet.

"At best, this is negligence. At worst, it is the intentional financing of IP crimes," he said.