Piracy is a problem that isn't going away any time soon. The studios can and will continue to sue people over stolen materials, but the simple fact is that too many people pirate films for them to be able to shut the "industry" down completely. The best move that the studios can make is to try and actually gain something from it - look at the statistics and learn something about their audiences and demographics. That's exactly what Warner Bros. has begun to do.
Paid Content was recently at the Content Protection Summit in Los Angeles where Ben Karakunnel, director of business intelligence at Warner Bros’ anti-piracy unit, revealed what the studio has learned by looking at piracy data from the last 18 months. Some of the findings we already knew, but some of them do come as a surprise:
- Pirates do pay for movies, be they in theater, DVD or online form. Even the most "diehard" ones pump money into the entertainment industry, though not as much as "casual" pirates.
- Statistical data shows that more women are streaming television shows online - rather than downloading on a person-to-person network - than men. This goes against most statistics, which show that the typical pirate is male and between the ages of 18 and 24.
- Piracy through search engines is down, as people have begun to trust base sites that link to illegal content rather than hosting it.
- People tend to pirate movies over television. According to the studio's stats, 65.31% of WB-content being downloaded using P2P networks are films, versus 34.69% for television. Karakunnel expects this ratio to grow after Jeff Robinov takes control of the film division and places a higher priority on blockbuster movies.
- International pirates have begun creating subtitle tracks on their own, but the process is slow. Karakunnel's findings showed that it wasn't until three days after release that a translated file was available.
This is truly the proper approach to fighting piracy. While certainly not admitting defeat, Warner Bros. seems to be employing a "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach that should work in their favor. Here's hoping that other studios get the message.
