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The Philippines ranks third among East and Southeast Asian countries in terms of on-demand subscription video piracy, restricting the growth of the creative industry and depriving the government of tax revenue, a trade association revealed in a virtual briefing. .
“Although SVOD legal [subscription video on demand] monetization is growing, piracy is still ubiquitous in the Philippines, ”said Neil Gane, general manager of the Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA) Anti-Piracy Coalition, at a virtual roundtable hosted by the Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute.
AVIA is an industry association comprised of multi-channel TV, digital multi-channel TV, content, platform, advertising and video delivery service providers across Asia.
Although the Media Partners Asia report indicates that SVOD is projected to become a $ 250 million industry in the Philippines this year, Gane noted that the industry would lose around $ 120 million to piracy.
“Hacking is depriving SVOD of $ 120 million in revenue per year, more than 90 percent of the current legal opportunity,” Gane said in his presentation titled “Digital Risk in the New Normal.”
He said legal SVOD has been growing in the country, led by current players like Netflix, Viu, HBO Go, and Prime Video. Disney + Hotstar and homegrown Viva are set to launch their SVOD services in 2021, he added.
In a YouGov 2020 survey, Gane noted that among eight countries in East and Southeast Asia, the Philippines ranked third among the percentage of consumers who admit to having accessed pirated streaming sites.
About 49 percent of respondents in the Philippines admitted to accessing hacking streaming sites in September 2020, behind 53 percent in Thailand and 50 percent in Vietnam.
By comparison, Hong Kong only had 48 percent of respondents admitting to accessing hacking streaming sites; Taiwan, 33 percent; Indonesia, 28 percent; Malaysia, 22 percent; and Singapore, 17 percent.
Gane said that in the same survey, 47 percent of consumers in the Philippines who accessed hacking sites admitted to canceling their subscriptions to both local and international content services.
He said that the majority of respondents believe that online piracy has negative consequences for the Philippines.
About 50 percent of those surveyed in the YouGov study believe that online piracy results in the loss of workers in the creative industry; And 55 percent say that online piracy makes people profit from content that isn’t theirs.
About 49 percent of those surveyed believe that online piracy increases the risk of malware infections on people’s computers and devices; and 44 percent say online hackers don’t pay taxes and therefore the whole of society is being defrauded.
About 29 percent of respondents say that online piracy has negative consequences for the Philippines in other ways, while only 9 percent believe that online piracy has no negative consequences for the Philippines.
To combat piracy, 53 percent of Filipino consumers online agree that the most effective measure is a “government order or law for ISPs to block hacked websites,” according to Gane. Senate Bill 497 was introduced in January 2019 to institutionalize the Online Violations Act.
Gane said that site blocking is an effective and commonly used disruptive tool in the fight against online piracy and is used by 45 countries around the world. Among them are Indonesia and Malaysia, which saw a significant drop in video piracy over the past year.
YouGov’s consumer research results particularly showed a 55 percent reduction in Indonesian consumers accessing hacking streaming websites over a 10-month period from September 2019 to June 2020, following adoption by part of the government blocking sites.
This blocked more than 2,800 streaming sites and app domains since July 2019 and resulted in a 69 percent reduction in traffic to hacking streaming websites and a 30 percent increase in traffic to legal services. .
From the 63 percent of consumers who admit to having accessed piracy streaming sites in Indonesia in September 2019, the number dropped to 28 percent in June 2020.
“Indonesia is now the market leader in intellectual property protection in Southeast Asia, driving the growth of legitimate services,” Gane said.
Online breach tracker White Bullet said that, globally, 12 percent of top pirate sites were found to have malware and fraud; and 29 percent have branded ads that include premium brands, giving sites a sense of credibility. They are often well funded with higher priced ads. About 3 percent carry explicit pornographic ads.
White Bullet also reported that of the top 20 pirate sites in the Philippines, 17 percent have malware and fraud, which is higher than the global average. About 49 percent have branded ads, while 11 percent have explicit pornographic ads, which are much higher than the global average.
