Online media piracy spiked in March, according to a report
issued by digital piracy tracking and analysis firm, Muso. In the
UK alone, Muso recorded over 300 million visits to sites allowing
media content to be downloaded illegally last month, as people have
been forced to stay home due to Covid-19 lockdown measures. Figures
for visits to piracy sites during the last week in March show a 57%
increase on the same period in February.
With legitimate streaming services seeing an increase in
subscribers (Netflix registered almost 16 million new subscribers
in the first quarter of the year, and Disney+ almost doubled its
global subscribers to 50 million since it launched in the UK and
Europe just as lockdowns began), it is inevitable that some will
seek their media from unofficial sources.
