Operators face a significant challenge: video piracy. The allure of free content undermines the revenue potential of legitimate platforms. According to past data from DataProt, the illegal downloading of copyrighted materials consumed 24% of global bandwidth in 2019, and nowadays this number is way higher. Since 2023 studies highlight that streaming overall (not just piracy) accounts for over 65% of downstream traffic.
Piracy levels vary across regions, with operators constantly battling illegal platforms that offer extensive libraries of linear channels and VOD content. These illegal streaming services account for over 80% of global online piracy and attract more than 230 billion views annually, leading to significant revenue loss and increased viewer churn for operators.
Implementing robust OTT security measures is imperative to prevent malicious actors from illicitly acquiring content, ensuring peace of mind for providers.
Video Piracy: What We Are Dealing With Today
The video content piracy landscape has shifted dramatically from P2P file-sharing to full-blown IPTV services. These services now emulate legitimate pay-TV experiences—live sports, 24/7 news, and premium shows—often with better UX than some licensed alternatives.
Piracy Isn’t Just Torrents Anymore
Subscription-based IPTV platforms now deliver live streaming, premium content, and 24/7 news with a surprisingly high-quality user experience, sometimes even outperforming legal platforms on latency.
According to the Subscription Television Piracy study, Data from Tier-1 North American networks shows that 6.5% of households access pirated IPTV services. During peak evening hours, those services accounted for over 6% of downstream traffic.
This isn’t occasional or accidental behavior. It’s the normalized use of unauthorized video streaming, and it speaks to the urgent need for proactive streaming piracy prevention measures.
Simple math tells that pirate IPTV platforms are estimated to be pulling in over $840 million annually, with about 7 million pirate IPTV users paying ~$10/month. If those users switched to legal streaming services, operators could potentially recover up to $4.2 billion in revenue.
And content creators? They see none of that. Piracy bypasses every video content piracy security solution in the legitimate pipeline. It’s a broken value chain where studios, producers, and talent get left out of the economics entirely.
Video Content Piracy Is Now a Full-Blown Infrastructure
The video piracy ecosystem includes end users, box sellers, unlicensed content providers, and cloud-based video hosts. Roughly 95% of pirated video traffic moves through purpose-built set-top boxes (STBs). Kodi, side-loaded Roku devices, PCs, and mobile apps round out the long tail.
This isn’t fringe behavior—it’s organized and scalable. Protecting content now requires addressing not just the playback layer, but the supply infrastructure feeding pirate networks.
Phantom Bandwidth Is Wasting Everyone’s Resources
Pirate STBs don’t stop streaming when the viewer walks away. Sandvine found that these devices often continue consuming data 24/7, resulting in what they call “phantom bandwidth.” This drains ISP resources, inflates costs, and can even trigger overage fees for unaware users.
In contrast, secure video platforms like Netflix use timeout protections. Pirate devices don’t. That’s not just a UX flaw, it’s a security measure gap with real financial impact.
Not All Viewers Think They’re Pirating
Some users knowingly subscribe to unlicensed IPTV services. Others deliberately avoid asking. And in many cases, the user experience is so polished that it doesn’t feel illegal.
This is a UX issue as much as a legal one. The more seamless pirate platforms become, the more important it is for licensed services to differentiate through quality, clarity, and added value—not just warnings.
Not Just Cheaper—Often Faster
Let’s start with a real-world example. Sandvine compared four feeds of the same Major League Baseball game: a traditional cable broadcast, a licensed IPTV stream, and the official MLB.TV stream, and a pirate IPTV feed.
The results:
- The pirate stream was 13 seconds faster than MLB.TV
- It was 15 seconds faster than the licensed IPTV service
- And only 9 seconds behind the live cable broadcast
All looking identical to the viewer. That’s not a fringe problem—it’s a UX and latency problem that directly undercuts paid platforms.
What Gets Pirated Most? The Content You’re Paying the Most For
The streaming piracy ecosystem is designed around three high-value consumption patterns. Think of them as “product lines” of a well-run black market:
- Video on Demand (VOD): Back catalogs of hit series, blockbuster movies, and original content. Example: bingeing all past seasons of Game of Thrones.
- Catch-Up TV: Recently aired programming, typically available in a 7-day window. Think of it as a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) in the cloud, no box required.
- Live TV: Real-time broadcasts of events, live sports, awards shows, breaking news. This is where pirates shine, especially in latency-sensitive content.
And to be clear, the infrastructure is no longer sketchy. Most pirate IPTV services use set-top boxes (STBs) with familiar interfaces, EPGs, and seamless playback—preloaded with apps and channels, just like a legal IPTV solution. These boxes often rely on M3U8 playlists, just like legitimate HLS-based services.
How to Combat Video Piracy?
Beyond getting purely technical, it’s the approach that needs to be calibrated first to protect video content from piracy.
If media and entertainment companies want to protect video content and uncover hidden revenue opportunities, they’ll need to move past a black-and-white view of the problem. Here’s a smarter way forward:
Shift the Mindset
Piracy is a signal. Treat it as insight into what users want but aren’t getting from legitimate channels. This means thinking less like a gatekeeper and more like a strategist: how can you convert unauthorized viewers into paying customers?
Use Data Without Borders
Too often, anti-piracy data lives in silos—legal, engineering, marketing, etc. Break that down. Pull in data from across the organization (and even external sources) to build a real-time, unified view of how, where, and why your content is being pirated. That’s the foundation of a smart video content piracy security solution.
Think → Build → Scale
Don’t chase pirates with ad hoc tactics. Instead, develop a structured anti-piracy framework. Start small, like value-based use cases that solve specific problems, and build out the tools, workflows, and teams to scale protection sustainably.
Setplex’s Solutions to Combat Piracy
At Setplex, we are committed to streaming piracy prevention and safeguarding our clients’ platforms from cyber threats. Our transcoder solution, Setrix, is designed from the ground up to secure your video content and combat video piracy. Here’s how it works:
Setrix Transcoder with DRM support by Setplex
#1 Digital Rights Management & Secure Access Control
Setrix supports major DRM systems including Widevine, PlayReady, and FairPlay, integrating seamlessly with leading providers like PallyCon, EzDRM, Irdeto, and ExpressPlay. This ensures premium video content is encrypted and protected across platforms, helping operators meet licensing requirements and prevent unauthorized use.
It also enables token-based session authentication and geoblocking, allowing content to be restricted by session and geography. These mechanisms ensure only authorized users in licensed regions can access protected streams.
#2 AI-Enhanced Transcoding with Ad Insertion Support
Setrix combines hardware-accelerated transcoding for Live and VOD with AI-powered ad detection that automatically identifies ad breaks in content. Paired with SCTE‑35 marker parsing and insertion, this enables seamless integration with third-party server-side ad insertion (SSAI) platforms to support monetization without interrupting playback.
#3 Flexible Format & Playlist Management
Compatible with major industry protocols (UDP, SRT, RTMP, HLS, DASH, CMAF) and codecs (H.264, H.265, VP9, AV1, AAC, AC‑3), Setrix supports a wide range of deployment scenarios. Its playlist tool also allows operators to combine multiple media files (MP4, MOV, MKV, etc.) into linear-style programming for live channel creation.
#4 Multi-Tenant UI & Scalable Infrastructure
The multi-tenant web interface provides intuitive control with role-based permissions, which is ideal for teams managing shared infrastructure or multiple services. Setrix also includes horizontal load balancing and failover capabilities, distributing workloads across servers to maintain uptime and performance even during high traffic spikes.
#5 Real-Time Monitoring & Alerting
Operators receive email or SMS alerts (via Twilio) for stream issues, server overloads, or outages. This proactive monitoring ensures rapid troubleshooting and uninterrupted service delivery, critical for both QoS and SLA commitments.
Enhance Your Security Measures with Setrix
As operators ourselves, we know firsthand how vital video content protection is to the success of any OTT business. That’s why our solutions are designed to defend against modern piracy threats while keeping your content, revenue, and audience trust intact. To learn more about Setrix, download the spec sheet.
Don’t wait for piracy to become a business problem. Let’s talk about how Setplex can help you secure your platform and future-proof your growth. Together, we can build a safer, smarter streaming experience.
FAQ: How to Protect Video Content From Piracy
How can piracy be prevented?
Preventing video piracy requires a multi-layered approach. Implementing robust Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems, watermarking, and secure streaming protocols can deter unauthorized access. Additionally, monitoring for illegal distribution and collaborating with law enforcement are crucial steps in combating piracy.
How to combat illegal streaming?
Combating illegal streaming involves a combination of technological and legal strategies. Utilizing advanced DRM, watermarking, and real-time monitoring tools can help detect and prevent unauthorized streams. Legal actions, such as takedown notices and pursuing legal consequences for offenders, also play a vital role.
Does DRM stop piracy?
DRM significantly reduces the risk of piracy by controlling access and usage of digital content. While it may not eliminate piracy entirely, when combined with other measures like watermarking and legal enforcement, DRM serves as a strong deterrent against unauthorized distribution.
