Pirated TV content is surging in popularity, and a damning new report on the subject has placed the blame at the feet of “big tech” companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta, saying their apathy is one of the primary reasons for its growth.
The report by Enders Analysis calls on technology companies to do more to battle piracy, accusing them of enabling “industry-scale theft” of video streaming services.
The vast majority of pirated content is sports broadcasts, which can be illegally accessed via third-party applications that steal the livestream from the authorized broadcaster and make it available for free to people using “jailbroken” streaming devices.
According to Enders Analysis, there has been a big increase in the number of consumers buying “illegal Amazon Fire TV Sticks” that are typically advertised on platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp. Its report found that 59% of survey respondents in the U.K. admit to watching pirated content while using such a device.
The Fire TV Stick devices are jailbroken, which means the manufacturer’s restrictions on the device are bypassed, by third-parties who then preload them with IPTV apps that stream pirated sports broadcasts over the web. They’re one of the most popular ways for people to access content such as Premier League football games on the cheap.
However, the report also blames the sports broadcasting industry for the rise in piracy, saying that they have made such content too expensive for many people to access legally.
Amazon is also to blame, the report’s authors say, because it’s possible for users to “sideload” applications from other sources that are not found in its official app store. It’s also possible to sideload IPTV apps on devices that run Android TV and Google TV, the report noted.
“Big tech is both friend and foe in solving the piracy problem,” the authors wrote. “Conflicting incentives harm consumer safety by providing easy discovery of illegal pirated services, and reduced friction through low-cost hardware such as the Amazon Firestick.”
A spokesperson for Amazon told the BBC that pirated content violates its policies on intellectual property rights and compromises the security and privacy of customers. In light of the report, he said the company has made changes to its Fire devices that will make it harder for users to stream such content.
Amazon may be able to step up its efforts to fight piracy when it launches its new operating system for Fire TV platforms, known as Vega OS. That software is still in development, but the company ultimately hopes to ditch Android, which the existing Fire TV operating system is based on, though it’s a major undertaking that will require developers to rebuild their TV apps from scratch. Once Vega OS rolls out, users will no longer be able to sideload Android apps on the devices that run it. But that’s not to say the pirates won’t just go and develop illegal IPTV apps for Vega OS, alongside their Android versions.
The report also criticized Google and Microsoft, saying that their digital rights management systems are in “steep decline” as a result of neglect. For instance, Microsoft hasn’t updated its anti-piracy software PlayReady since December 2022.
