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ARTICLE · 12 JULY 2022

Piracy In The Times Of OTT

S.S. Rana & Co.
S.S. Rana & Co.
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S.S. Rana & Co.

S.S. Rana & Co.

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When Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar (not yet Disney+), started their growth spurt, a generation that had grown up with streaming content over Torrents sat up and took notice.

IndiaMedia, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment
Pranit Biswas
Pranit Biswas
Ragini Ghosh
Ragini Ghosh
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When Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar (not yet Disney+), started their growth spurt, a generation that had grown up with streaming content over Torrents sat up and took notice. Could this spell the end of bit torrent clients, and hard drives full of downloaded international content? Was on-demand truly going to become the new normal of film and television?

For a while it did seem so. Netflix was the first to shake up broadcast culture in India, and Amazon wasn't very far behind. After Disney's acquisition and revamp of Hotstar, it became a platform for some remarkable content, notably HBO specials (such as Game of Thrones), instead of solely being targeted at live sports buffs. With a few players in the field, a subscription fee that fit most budgets, the tradition of torrent downloads did indeed trickle. However, as network television came to grips with the new reality of on-demand content, the only way they realized they could cash in on the lucrative new

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