MUSO’s data shows visits to TV piracy sites were up 20% in the first half of 2021

By Emmanuel Legrand  

Visits to TV piracy websites have increased by over 20% in the first six months of 2021 compared to the first 6 months of 2020, according to a report from UK-based piracy tracking site MUSO.  

  During the period, MUSO tracked over 41 billion visits to TV piracy sites. The United States remain the leading market for accessing unlicensed TV content, followed by China and the Russian Federation.  

Top 15 countries in volume accessing to TV piracy sites, January-June 2021

Of this traffic, 94% visited unlicensed streaming websites with public torrent networks only accounting for 2.9% of traffic.

Disney+'s show ‘Loki S1’ was the most popular TV show with piracy audiences, and accounted for 40% of piracy consumption of the top 10 TV titles for June 2021. MUSO said the show’s audience was largely from Brazil and the US.    

  MUSO’s data also shows that there is a immediate correlation between the moment a show is available on licensed TV, and when it pops up on pirated sites. For example, the show ‘Rick and Morty’ (Season 5) was officially released on June 20th on HBO Max in the US, and was available via piracy networks on the same day.  It ended up being the second most in-demand show in June 2021, despite being only available for 10 days. The new season was especially followed by audiences in the US, Mexico, Turkey and the UK.  

  Netflix provides two of the Top 10 most pirated shows during the period: ‘Elite’ (Season 4) and ‘Sweet Tooth’ (Season 1).  

  MUSO tracks piracy data relating to over 165,000 films and TV titles.