Should subscription sharing be allowed to stop piracy?

Should subscription sharing be allowed to stop piracy?

With the advent of the internet and other digital technologies, online piracy has grown into significant concern for all types of copyright owners and publishers. It has a severe effect on multi-billion Films and TV industries. Online piracy is anticipated to cost $52 billion by 2022. Movie industry itself incurs a loss of approximately around 40 and 97.1 billion dollars annually.

The Reasons for Piracy:

  • According to 69 percent of respondents, the released content isn't available in the relevant demographical area.
  • 31 %  state that the increase in price of digital streaming have forced them to opt for easy illegal downloads.
  • Inaccessible contents are readily available in pirate sites.
  • The absence of OTT service in a particular area, locality  or a country.
  • The emergence of a number of OTT platforms providing unlimited digital content creates confusion for which [platform to subscribe to.

The U.S. alone serves as a primary hub making up 27.9 billions visits to piracy websites every year . The rest of the world accounts for approximately 170.6 billion visits.

About Sharing subscriptions

  • Sharing subscriptions are a feature that allows a single account to be used to establish several profiles for many users to access digital content on OTT platforms. The number varies according to the plan taken by the primary account holder.  The  subscription plan differs in terms of the number of devices on which the content can be streamed as well as the number of people who can view it. Users can profit from the plan on a monthly or annual basis.

The pros . in countering piracy with Sharing subscriptions.

  • Sharing membership accounts allows more than one individual to access digital content at a low cost and with ease.
  • New consumers are naturally enticed to subscribe to the streaming service because of the reduced pricing.
  • Users who have easy access to content and materials curated for them based on their watch algorithms are less likely to employ illicit methods.
  • There is access to live streaming of sports such as crickets, Racing, olympics ,commonwealth games etc.
  • Screen recordings are avoided.
  • There is no need to use VPN or other illegal credentials to access and stream contents.

The cons. in countering piracy with sharing subscriptions.

  • It doesn't guarantee absolute security to piracy.
  • If the price is higher , users are likely to cancel subscription .
  • Password sharing has increased viewings from unauthorized users.
  • It is an Uncertain revenue model .
  • Lacks strong digital rights anti piracy management which can result in more illegal content distribution.

Along with sharing subscriptions  the companies need to strengthen their licence and revoke digital management copyright act in a strong manner.To prevent undesired access to their intellectual property, there should be high barriers to entrance into the streaming app. Additional methods, such as requesting government authorities and inermidiaries, cooperating with various stakeholders, payment processors, and e-commerce sites, should be used to combat piracy.