NATPE 2016: Roughly Half of Latin American Net Users Access Pirated Content

Complete Coverage: NATPE 2016

Roughly half of the estimated 222.3 million Internet users in South America, or 110.5 million, accessed a site that distributed pirated video or audio content via cyberlockers, peer-to-peer networks or illegal IPTV streaming site.

That insight headlined the most complete study to date of online video piracy in South America, released Thursday at NATPE. The figures came from the anti-piracy association of the leading companies in the Latin American pay-TV industry, Alianza contra la Piratería de Televisión Paga.

The study, the first of its kind in South America, covers nine countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela). Researchers analyzed Internet usage data in the countries during a single month, with a focus on the three principal audiovisual piracy ecosystems. Cyberlockers emerged as the worst problem, accounting for up to 28% of total Internet usage during the period.

In a further finding, NetNames has analyzed the total amount of bandwidth used in South America to illegally access online video content. The group found that 789 petabytes of bandwidth usage were attributable to users of cyberlockers, peer-to-peer, and illegal IPTV streaming, representing an estimated 1.5 billion hours of viewing annually.