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The more accurate conclusion is uncomfortable for streaming companies. By splitting catalogues across services, raising prices, adding advertising, restricting account sharing and allowing titles to disappear or vary by country, the industry has weakened the convenience advantage that once made legal streaming an obvious alternative to piracy.
“Piracy is back” depends on what you mean
Piracy can be measured in several fundamentally different ways:
- Visits to piracy websites
- The number of people using illegal streaming or IPTV services
- Piracy of television, films, anime, manga, music or software
- Unauthorized live sports streams
- Commercial revenue generated by illegal services
- The number of former legal subscribers who return to infringement
- Consumer discussion about piracy
These measures are not interchangeable. Website visits are not unique users, an IPTV-registration visit is not a confirmed subscription, and a rise in illegal sports streams can occur while overall piracy traffic declines.
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So the provocative headline is only partly right. Piracy has not disappeared, but the strongest evidence supports a targeted resurgence—or continued strength—in particular categories rather than a blanket return to piracy everywhere.
What the latest data actually shows
Global piracy traffic fell in 2025
MUSO’s 2025 report counted 185.6 billion visits to piracy websites across film, television, publishing, software and music in 192 countries. That was a 14.2% decline from the 216.3 billion visits recorded in 2024.
Those figures describe visits across multiple delivery methods, including streaming, downloads, torrents and stream-ripping. They do not represent 185.6 billion people, nor do they prove that every visit resulted in a completed viewing. Nevertheless, the year-over-year decline makes “piracy is booming everywhere” an indefensible summary of the global market.
Television and IPTV remain major pressure points
The European picture is more complicated. The European Union Intellectual Property Office found that overall online piracy in the EU was broadly stable in 2023, at approximately 10.2 accesses per internet user per month. Television piracy accounted for about 5.1 accesses per user per month, with streaming the dominant method for pirated TV.
Visits to illegal IPTV-registration websites increased by 10% in 2023. EUIPO also estimated that as many as 1% of EU internet users may have subscribed to an illegal IPTV service during a two-year period. That is an estimate, not a confirmed count of current subscribers, and it excludes people who subscribed before the measured period.
The important point is not that every form of piracy is rising. It is that television piracy is adapting particularly well to the subscription economy. A single unauthorized IPTV portal can be marketed as an alternative to a stack of legitimate services, offering channels, films, series and sports through one interface.
Why live sports are different
Live sports are among the most piracy-prone forms of entertainment because their value is concentrated in a short window. A delayed takedown after a match or tournament has ended is often worthless. A single captured broadcast can be copied and redistributed across websites, social-media accounts, messaging channels and competing streams within minutes.
Legitimate sports access is also unusually fragmented. A viewer may need separate subscriptions for a domestic league, an international competition, local broadcasts and premium events. Rights are divided among broadcasters, platforms and leagues, while availability varies sharply by country.
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The result is a perfect environment for illegal operators: high demand, time-sensitive viewing, expensive rights and a large audience that wants one reliable destination. The U.S. Trade Representative’s 2025 Notorious Markets review specifically describes streaming sites, hosting providers and other services involved in live-sports piracy. Attention will intensify around the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
That does not mean every sports pirate would otherwise buy an official package. Some would not pay at any price. But the structure of the legal market clearly creates opportunities that illegal services are designed to exploit.
How streaming rebuilt the old cable problem
Early streaming succeeded partly because it solved piracy’s strongest selling points. Legal services offered a low monthly price, a broad catalogue, immediate access, reliable playback, cross-device support and a simple interface. Viewers no longer needed to search through questionable websites or manage downloaded files.
That proposition has weakened.
Fragmentation and subscription stacking
Studios and broadcasters reclaimed their libraries to launch proprietary services. Popular franchises are now divided among competing platforms, while sports rights remain split between broadcasters, leagues and specialist services. Someone who wants several kinds of entertainment may need four or more paid subscriptions before adding live sports.
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallDeloitte’s 2025 research described the market as more competitive but also more fragmented, with U.S. households paying about $69 per month for four paid streaming services. That is a survey finding, not a universal bill, and it varies by household, country and plan selection. It nevertheless captures why “just subscribe legally” is no longer a complete answer for many viewers.
Higher prices and advertising
Price increases have made the trade-off more visible. Deloitte’s 2026 survey found that 73% of respondents were frustrated by repeated streaming price increases, while 61% said they would cancel a favourite service after a $5 monthly increase. The same research reported that 68% of streaming subscribers pay for or use an ad-supported tier, depending on the report’s definition.
Advertising is not inherently unreasonable. It can create a cheaper legal option and support free services. But consumers who remember streaming as a relatively inexpensive, ad-free replacement for cable may reasonably see a different value proposition when paid plans become more expensive while lower tiers add commercial interruptions.
Account-sharing restrictions
Many households once treated streaming accounts as flexible household resources, sharing access among family members or close friends. Services have increasingly limited those arrangements. From a business perspective, this converts informal users into potential paying customers. From a consumer perspective, it removes a benefit that had become part of the perceived product.
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Account sharing is not the same thing as copyright piracy. A provider’s terms of service, a household arrangement and an unauthorized IPTV operation are different legal and commercial categories. But changing the rules can still affect how valuable a subscription feels.
Rotating catalogues and regional availability
A legal subscription does not guarantee permanent access to a title. Shows and films move between services, disappear when licensing agreements expire or arrive at different times in different countries. A viewer may know a title exists but still be unable to watch it legally in their territory.
This is especially frustrating when unauthorized copies appear online immediately after a release—or months before an official local launch. The problem is not always price. Sometimes it is timing, breadth or availability.
Price matters, but convenience may matter more
It is tempting to explain piracy as a simple response to expensive subscriptions. Cost is clearly part of the incentive. Consumers are price-sensitive, and survey evidence links high subscription counts with higher reported use of illegal content.
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But many people pirate content they could afford to buy. They may want one catalogue, one search box, one interface or immediate access across borders. For sports viewers, breadth and timing may matter more than the absolute monthly price.
A legal service might require several apps, separate logins and multiple billing relationships. An illegal service may advertise a single playlist containing everything. That apparent convenience can be powerful even when the legal alternatives are not unaffordable.
Industry-sponsored research such as Synamedia’s survey is useful for illustrating the relationship between fragmentation and piracy, but it should be treated as survey evidence rather than proof that price increases caused a global piracy surge.
The illegal alternative is not actually a better product
Illegal services can look attractive because they aggregate content, remove geographical restrictions and promise ad-free access. Their convenience is usually built on infringement and unstable infrastructure.
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- Tracking and invasive data collection
- Malware or malicious browser extensions
- Unreliable streams and disappearing domains
- Fake payment pages and scams
- No meaningful customer support or refund protection
Research into illegal live-streaming services has documented deceptive advertising, malicious extensions, scams and extensive tracking. The apparent bargain can therefore carry security and privacy costs that are invisible in the advertised monthly price. A VPN does not make copyright infringement legal, and security software cannot turn an unauthorized service into a legitimate one.
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Piracy is now a commercial ecosystem
The stereotype of piracy as one person downloading a file is incomplete. Modern infringement can involve:
- Commercial IPTV subscriptions
- Restreaming of legitimate broadcasts
- Dedicated piracy websites and aggregators
- Hosting providers resistant to takedown requests
- Social platforms and messaging groups used for distribution
- Advertising and affiliate networks
- Fraud and malware operations surrounding illegal streams
The USTR review describes a decentralized and technologically accessible ecosystem in which some unauthorized streams approach legitimate broadcast quality. Rapid domain replacement and cross-border infrastructure make enforcement difficult.
Responsibility is therefore distributed. A commercial IPTV seller is not equivalent to a viewer who watches one unauthorized stream. A hosting provider is not equivalent to a rights holder. An advertiser or payment intermediary may not operate the service but can still help sustain it. Treating all participants as one category obscures how the market works.
Who is responsible?
Streamers
Streaming companies helped create demand for legal access, but they also weakened their own proposition through price increases, fragmented catalogues, advertising, restrictive account policies and removals. They did not single-handedly cause piracy, but they removed some of the advantages that made legal streaming more attractive.
Rights holders and studios
Exclusive licensing and territorial windows can protect revenue while making legal access confusing or unavailable. A title that is licensed in one country but delayed in another creates a gap that unauthorized distributors can fill.
Sports leagues and broadcasters
High-value rights are expensive and often divided among multiple services. Flexible event passes, clearer packages and affordable access could reduce the appeal of illegal sports feeds without eliminating the commercial value of live rights.
Platforms, hosts and intermediaries
Web platforms, hosting companies, advertisers and payment providers occupy different roles, but weak notice-and-action systems can allow illegal distribution to continue. A 2025 European Commission working document reported sharply different suspension performance during live transmission among types of intermediaries. The figures require careful interpretation because the definitions and methodology differ, but they show why real-time enforcement matters.
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Governments and enforcement agencies
Cross-border operations, mirror sites and rapid redistribution create problems that individual rights holders cannot solve alone. Enforcement is particularly important for commercial operators and live events, where a post-event takedown may have little practical effect.
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Consumers
Bad streaming economics can explain why piracy is tempting; they do not excuse intentional infringement. Viewers also fund illegal markets when they pay IPTV sellers or use services that monetize their attention through scams and deceptive advertising.
What a healthier legal market would look like
Reducing piracy does not require recreating cable television’s old bundle of hundreds of unwanted channels. It does require restoring the advantages that legal services once offered.
- Reasonably priced bundles that reduce subscription stacking
- Better cross-service search and availability information
- More consistent international release dates
- Flexible passes for individual sports events or tournaments
- Affordable and transparent sports packages
- Ad tiers that are clearly priced and honestly described
- Less punitive account policies
- Simple rental and purchase options for one-off viewing
- Rapid enforcement against live unauthorized broadcasts
The aim should not be to make every service identical or to pretend that all consumers will pay. It is to ensure that legal access is sufficiently convenient, available and reasonably priced that piracy is no longer the easiest route to the content people want.
How viewers can reduce the cost legally
Consumers do not need to maintain every subscription all year. Practical alternatives include:
- Rotate services. Subscribe for a month, watch the titles you want and cancel before the next billing cycle.
- Compare official bundles. Check the current price, included tier, simultaneous streams and cancellation terms before choosing one.
- Use free legal services. Tubi and Pluto TV offer free, ad-supported viewing in supported markets.
- Rent or buy a single title. Prime Video and other legitimate stores may be more economical than adding another recurring subscription.
- Search before subscribing. JustWatch can show whether a title is included, rentable or purchasable in a particular market.
- Check libraries and physical media. Local library services and used or borrowed discs can provide legal access without another monthly bill.
- Compare official sports options. Check the league, broadcaster and team packages rather than assuming an unauthorized IPTV seller is the only affordable option.
Current prices, plan names and availability vary by country and change frequently, so they should be checked on each provider’s official signup page.
The verdict
Streaming companies did not single-handedly bring piracy back. The latest global data actually shows piracy-site visits declining in 2025. But the industry has made piracy’s pitch more persuasive in several important areas.
When legal content is divided among multiple services, prices rise, paid tiers contain ads, account sharing is restricted and releases vary by country, the old streaming promise starts to resemble the fragmentation that piracy once solved. That does not prove that price increases caused a new global piracy wave, and it does not mean every pirate would become a paying customer. It does show that legal services have weakened some of the convenience advantages that once made them the obvious choice.
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