IPTV: This figure reveals the monumental fiasco of the fight against piracy

© Shutterstock/PerlaStudio

Faced with illegal streaming, torrents, and IPTV, rights holders are using a now well-known technique. They report the reprehensible addresses to Google, which then works to remove them from its search engine. In a recent transparency report published by the web giant, we have just learned of a figure that gives us food for thought. We even want to say, all that for that. Explanations.

10 billion takedown requests

DMCA notices are the name given to this procedure that has been used to report pirated content for over ten years now. According to the transparency report published by the technology company, these withdrawal requests currently exceed 10 billion.

As observed by the specialized site TorrentFreak, the curve is anything but linear. The requests were initially timid before increasing spectacularly. In 2016, we finally exceeded the total of one billion DMCA notices.

Then, this progression ended up stagnating due to a new strategy implemented by the search engine. Indeed, the latter modified its algorithms somewhat to make this illegal content less visible in the results.

This only lasted for a while. Last summer, Google recorded the 7 billionth removal request before the numbers went crazy again and we reached 10 billion. Today, Google receives about 2.5 billion DMCA notices per year, or 5,000 per minute!

Piracy is not decreasing

We are therefore entitled to question the effectiveness of this strategy. In fact, illegal actors have become accustomed to circumventing blockages and delistings by creating mirror sites that duplicate the content of a portal. As for Internet users, while some are disconcerted and may choose to stop pirating, many of them turn to VPN or DNS services.

Despite this pressure on pirate sites, we can only note that the consultation of these offers has not really decreased. To cite just one recent survey conducted by Odoxa, 5% of French people, or around 2.5 million of our fellow citizens, resort to illegal means to view matches (IPTV or illegal streaming).

At the same time, this practice is not singled out at all, and 6 out of 10 French people even explain that they understand this behavior. They believe that the prices of subscriptions to streaming platforms and pay TV channels are too high. Feel free to consult this study in more detail in our previous article here.

📍 To not miss any Presse-citron news, follow us on Google News and WhatsApp.

[ ]