◼ BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek March 8, 202118
NETFLIX/EVERETT COLLECTION (2). DISNEY+. GLOBE STUDIOSTHE BOTTOM LINE Piracy is expected to cost TV and film
providers almost $52 billion globally in 2022. Content pilfered from
streaming services in Asia is a fast-growing part of the problem.they accessed illegal streaming sites in 2019. It
was highest in the Philippines, where 66% admitted
doing so. In Indonesia, 62% of those who accessed the
sites said they’d canceled subscriptions to paid ser-
vices. Visits to pirated sites increased by a third glob-
ally when lockdowns began last March, according
to Muso TNT Ltd., which tracks piracy. In India,
access to pirated movies jumped 63%, Muso said.
By the end of this year only 6.5% of households
in Southeast Asia will have the streaming services
of Netflix Inc. or Walt Disney Co., according to con-
sultant Media Partners Asia. So countering piracy
before it becomes further entrenched could be key
to their long-term growth in the region. “It’s still early
days,” says Vivek Couto, who runs Media Partners
Asia. “The industry needs government policy that
criminalizes the act and cracks down on operators.”
For now, viewers in Vietnam can watch hits such
as Netflix’s Bling Empire and Disney’s WandaVision
almost as soon as episodes come out. One popular
pirate site even uses Netflix’s distinctive red type-
face for its own logo. Consumers can also use illegal
streaming apps and devices, available at local elec-
tronics marts, to view premium content.
At the Metro Manila Film Festival in December,
officials at Globe Studios, a local production com-
pany, were hoping to get a few days of sales for their
entry, Fan Girl, before the pirates caught up. The stu-
dio, which makes movies bought by Netflix, charged
viewers 250 pesos ($5.15) per download during the
virtual festival. But by the second day, pirated sites
were screening the romantic comedy, with some
charging just 10 pesos a view. “We were glued to our
computers, watching 10 links pop up every hour—
giving the movie away. Some had 45,000 views,” says
Quark Henares, head of the studio, a unit of Globe
Telecom Inc. “We were supposed to lean back and
enjoy the box- office success. Instead, we were track-
ing down websites and couldn’t shut them down.”
Henares says Globe lost millions of pesos of festival
revenue. Theft is making it impossible to produce
content profitably in the Philippines, he says.
Pirate sites in Asia often have links to illicit online
gambling, says Gane, whose antipiracy group is part
of AVIA. Offering free entertainment allows pirates
to draw customers to gambling sites and gain rev-
enue from other questionable advertising there.
And some websites offering pirated movies have ties
to organized crime groups, according to Interpol.
To hinder illegal distribution, streaming services
employ technologies such as watermarks, either vis-
ible to deter piracy or invisible. Digital fingerprinting
helps broadcast platforms such as YouTube iden-
tify if material is copyrighted. But the most popular
weapon against video piracy is to block websites,and that requires government cooperation. In most
Asian countries law enforcement can shut down a
site only if there’s a criminal case against its opera-
tors, according to AVIA. Even in nations that have
passed laws to allow courts or government agencies
to block offending sites, the process is often slow.
In Indonesia the association sends the govern-
ment a list every 10 days of 50 illicit websites iden-
tified by its automated software for rapid blocking.
AVIA says more than 3,000 illegal sites have been
shuttered since mid-2019. But a follow-up survey the
group sponsored last year showed that, while the
number of Indonesians accessing illicit websites fell
55%, only 16% of those who formerly accessed thepirate sites went on to subscribe to a paid service. “It’s
a whack-a-mole game,” says Chand Parwez Servia,
head of the Indonesian Film Board. “The problem
is they are faster. What we need is enforcement and
court action to go after the operators.”
Indonesia’s minister for communications and
information technology didn’t respond to requests
for comment. The Intellectual Property Office of the
Philippines recommended provisions for speedy
site-blocking at a congressional committee hearing
in February, according to Director General Rowel
Barba, who says the agency currently has no legal
authority to take down websites.
The heart of the problem, though, is the atti-
tude of viewers, many of whom see nothing wrong
in downloading movies. “A lot of users believe that
since they’re paying for internet access, what-
ever is on the internet should be free,” says Maria
Yolanda Crisanto, chief sustainability officer at Globe
Telecom. “Changing that mindset has been slow.”
�K. Oanh Ha and Claire Jiao, with Shirley Zhao▲ Fare targeted by
pirates (clockwise from
top left): Netflix’s The
Queen’s Gambit and
Bling Empire, Disney+’s
WandaVision, and Globe
Studios’ Fan Girl