Skip to main content

Why waste hard drive space? Study shows streaming made up 75 percent of piracy in 2015

Are you finding yourself streaming more and more content while your Blu-ray collection gathers dust? It turns out that the convenience of streaming is just as alluring to those who aren’t paying for their content.

Game of Thrones might have been the most downloaded show of 2015, but even pirates are turning away from downloads. According to MUSO’s 2016 Global Film & TV Piracy Market Insight Report, the vast majority of piracy in 2015 took place via illegal streaming, with a total of 57.8 billion visits to piracy sites last year — that’s nearly 75 percent of all visits to such sites.

Recommended Videos

More than 12 percent of the global piracy audience in 2015 came from the U.S., with a total of 9.86 billion visits. Many of the other top countries were located in Europe, with France, Germany, and the U.K. all claiming spots in the top 10. People might be doing more browsing via mobile devices these days, but apparently not pirates, as 72 percent of the total 78.5 billion visits to piracy sites in 2015 came from desktop devices.

While still popular, downloads via torrents made up only just over 17 percent of visits, declining by 18 percent between the first six months and last six months of 2015. While this means there are still plenty of users out there building enormous collections of downloaded TV shows, movies, and music, more and more of them are opting to stream instead.

“Piracy audiences are becoming better connected, more tech savvy, and know what they want, which is why so many of them have chosen to stream infringing content, rather than download it illegally,” MUSO’s Chief Commercial Officer Christopher Elkins said in a statement.

Another possible reason for the increase is that some users who were previously getting content from legitimate services like Netflix via means like VPNs are finding they can no longer do that and are resorting to piracy instead. While installing a torrent client and finding a tracker might be beyond the realm of the not so tech-savvy, clicking the play button on a website isn’t.

Government agencies continue to focus on taking down torrent sites, with the alleged founder of Kickass Torrents arrested last week, but now it seems that they have a new problem on their hands. With options like Torrents Time being as easy for site operators to set up as installing a plugin, they’ve got their work cut out for them.

Kris Wouk
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…
How to change margins in Google Docs
Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content -- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Read more
What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app
A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

Read more
Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs
A person using a laptop that displays various Microsoft Office apps.

For the last few decades, Microsoft Word has been the de facto standard for word processors across the working world. That's finally starting to shift, and it looks like one of Google's productivity apps is the heir apparent. The company's Google Docs solution (or to be specific, the integrated word processor) is cross-platform and interoperable, automatically syncs, is easily shareable, and perhaps best of all, is free.

However, using Google Docs proves it still has a long way to go before it can match all of Word's features -- Microsoft has been developing its word processor for over 30 years, after all, and millions still use Microsoft Word. Will Google Docs' low barrier to entry and cross-platform functionality win out? Let's break down each word processor in terms of features and capabilities to help you determine which is best for your needs.
How does each word processing program compare?
To put it lightly, Microsoft Word has an incredible advantage over Google Docs in terms of raw technical capability. From relatively humble beginnings in the 1980s, Microsoft has added new tools and options in each successive version. Most of the essential editing tools are available in Google Docs, but users who are used to Word will find it limited.

Read more