MUSO, Of All Groups, Tells Copyright Holders To Treat Pirates Like Customers They Are

While the copyright industries love to frame so-called "pirates" as nefarious freeloaders who simply want to consume content for free, it's been an open secret for some time now that these freeloaders are often outspending non-infringers on entertainment across the spectrum. Despite this clear indication that piracy is largely a problem of under-served customers, industry groups like the RIAA still prefer to play pretend with these obvious business metrics. The end result of this is that industry and anti-piracy groups essentially advocate for the attack of their constituents' best customers, which ought to be about as insane a thing as one can imagine.

But perhaps the tide is turning. An indication of that would be MUSO, the piracy-tracking group, essentially telling copyright industries to get their shit together and finally treat pirates like the great customers they tend to be. The report is based on a MUSO survey showing that 60% of UK citizens admit to engaging in copyright infringement, except the overwhelming majority of those "pirates" first tried, and failed, to get that content legally.

Of all the people surveyed the vast majority, 60 percent, admitted that they illegally streamed or downloaded music, film or TV-shows in the past. This could have been yesterday or even two years ago. Interestingly, the same pirates often try legal sources first. In fact, 83 percent say they usually try to find what they are looking for through official channels before trying anything else. This suggests that most pirates are also legal consumers.

“The entertainment industry tends to envisage piracy audiences as a criminal element, and writes them off as money lost – but they are wrong to do so,” says Paul Briley, CCO of MUSO, commenting on the findings. “The reality is that the majority of people who have gone through the effort of finding and accessing such unlicensed content are, first and foremost, fans – fans who are more often than not trying to get content legally if they can.”

First, a slow golf clap for MUSO finally getting what we've been saying for years. But a more sincere applause should be directed at MUSO, a piracy tracking outfit, turning the tables on the copyright holders that often use its reports to decry modernity, holding them accountable for what has always been a business model issue. Based on the same survey, the majority of pirates gave up on legit sourcing for content when they either could not find the content they wanted legally, or found that it was "siloed" in a service to which they do not subscribe. Barely a third indicated that cost or money had anything to do with it.

Sort of blows the whole "pirates just want stuff for free" thing out of the water, doesn't it? Not to mention that these "pirates", who supposedly want everything for free, spend a shit-ton of money on non-free entertainment.

MUSO’s survey reveals that 91% of all pirates already have a streaming subscription, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify or Apple Music. That’s more than their non-pirating counterparts, of which less than 80% subscribe to one of these services.

The problem is that people sometimes need over a dozen separate subscriptions to access all the content they want. There’s no single service that offers everything in one place. This is one of the main reasons why piracy is still very relevant.

If the copyright industries wanted to change the piracy landscape in an instant, they need only slay the monster that is delivery fragmentation. People are perfectly willing to pay for content, but the monetary and mental costs of incorporating five different streaming services, and then having to search across all of those services for a particular piece of content, falls prey to the ease of piracy. And that ease is exactly what the content industries should either be selling themselves, or partnering with others to sell, because that convenience is the product.

If nothing else, the mantra of piracy being about freeloaders should be dead.