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Portugal Remains a Piracy Hotspot Despite Blocking Thousands of Sites
Portugal often served as an example of how effectively pirate site blocking measures can be implemented. Internet providers are blocking more than 3,000 domain names today with relative ease. While Hollywood reported that the blocks are effective, not all rightsholders necessarily agree. In fact, new data reveals that Portugal remains a piracy hotspot in Europe.
Portugal now has a decade of experience with pirate site blocking measures, which were made possible through a voluntary agreement
In 2015, the country’s blocking scheme was formalized through a deal between several parties, including the Government, rightsholders, and Internet providers.
Under the blocking regime, many thousands of domain names have been blocked over the years. To strengthen the impact, advertisers joined in on the action by preventing ad placements on these sites.
Portugal: A Leading Site Blocking Example
The relative ease of this rollout, which received little pushback overall, was swiftly embraced by Hollywood. In 2016, Portugal served as a leading example of how other countries, including Spain and France, could implement their blocking plans.
A year later, a Hollywood-commissioned study confirmed that traffic to blocked sites had decreased significantly. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, as these domains are blocked after all, but it was seen as a great accomplishment nonetheless.
While site blocking is effective at blocking specific domains, it typically boosts traffic to unblocked sites. The effect wasn’t considered in the initial study, but the problem was previously documented in related research. And it’s visible today too, as Portugal’s piracy woes are far from over.
Blocking Pioneer and Piracy Hotspot?
Earlier this year, Apritel, the association for Portuguese Internet providers and telcos, flagged pirate streaming and IPTV services as a major problem. The group didn’t mention blocking as a solution, but suggested that the authorities should enable financial penalties for users of these services.
These piracy concerns are shared by many rightsholders and were also a topic at the Colloquium on Digital Piracy of Audiovisual Content, which took place in Lisbon last week. Here, many stakeholders discussed the ongoing piracy challenges.
With more than 3,000 blocked domain names, Portugal has strict anti-piracy measures in place. However, data from piracy tracking firm MUSO, prepared for last week’s meeting, shows that piracy remains popular in Portugal, even by European standards.
“Portugal’s piracy rate per user is 33% higher than the European average, marking it as one of the most active territories for unauthorised content consumption,” MUSO explains.
The higher piracy rates are also reflected in the number of visits to pirate sites by Internet users. These visit numbers are higher than in any other country in the region, despite the existing blocking measures.
“This pattern of high engagement has remained consistent across several years, indicating a need for ongoing and more refined enforcement strategies,” MUSO writes, aligning with the call for stronger enforcement.
Since MUSO only reports data on website visits, the growth in the use of pirate IPTV services is not reflected in these numbers. Instead, it appears that Portugal’s piracy numbers are in large part due to a seemingly overlooked content category.
Manga / Anime Blindspot?
After years of site blocking, many pirate sites are known to temporarily evade measures by switching to new domain names, which are eventually blocked again, resulting in an ongoing cat and mouse game. Tugaflix, for example, has been blocked for a decade, but new domains continue to show up.
MUSO data shows that a ‘Tugaflix’ domain has appeared in the list of ten most visited pirate sites in Portugal over the past 12 months. The domain has since been blocked and has already moved to a new location.
The list also reveals another interesting insight. The list of most visited piracy sites includes many Manga and Anime sites, including the hugely popular Asuracomic.net, as well as Hianime and 3xyaoi. According to our blocklist data, these remain accessible in Portugal.
In fact, we don’t see any Manga or Anime related website in the list of 3,000 blocked domain names we have access to, which was updated a few months ago. Apparently, this is somewhat of an enforcement blindspot.
This means that the relatively high piracy rates are not necessarily the result of lacking anti-piracy measures. Online piracy doesn’t magically disappear merely because anti-piracy tools exist; these tools must be actively and properly utilized by rightsholders.
Whether this was also a topic of discussion at last week’s anti-piracy colloquium is unknown.
