‘Illegal downloading of films increases sharply as a result of stay-at-home advice’

Illegal downloading of films and TV series has increased sharply in Europe and the United States compared to a few weeks ago, according to British research. Visits to sites that illegally offer TV series and movies are said to have increased by 30 to 50 percent in Europe.

The British research firm Muso TNT supplied its figures to the BBC, among others. A comparison between the last week of February and the last week of March shows that visits to websites offering illegal films increased by 36 percent in Germany, by 43 percent in the UK, by 50 percent in Spain, 47 percent in Portugal and even 66 percent in Italy.

The measured torrent traffic follows that trend, with an increase of 36.39 percent in January and February. That is without counting VPN users, as they are more difficult to measure, Vice writes. Muso also reports that it sees a similar increase in the consumption of paid streaming content.

The agency further states that the increase in illegal downloading of films and TV series is not entirely due to the corona virus and the resulting stay-at-home advice. Before that, the company had already noticed an increase in internet piracy. Muso attributed this increase to the arrival of several streaming services, each with exclusive content, which means that consumers have to purchase several services for a wide range.