Youtube: summer blockbusters are available for free, the pirates get their pockets full

According to a search for Adalytics, the firm has lost millions of dollars following this online launch. YouTube has long tried to reduce hacking, but users who upload pirated films and series have tactics to escape the detection tools of the platform.

Income generated with pirate movies on YouTube

Worse, YouTube even recommended certain illegal videos on his home page, such as Lilo & Stitch or Captain America: Brave New Worldaccording to the screenshots shared by Adalytics and an analysis of the New York Times. Google, which has YouTube, could also have generated income from these hacked videos, even if the amount remains vague. The pirates would then have largely benefited.

The Mountain View firm has a program called Content ID to identify videos protected by copyright and allow the beneficiaries to block them, share advertising revenues or access data on spectators.

YouTube has paid billions of dollars to rights holders over the years. The streaming platform explains that it scored 2.2 billion videos last year and that rights holders authorized approximately 90 % of these videos to stay on the platform.

Jack Malon, a spokesperson for YouTube, says that the company does not analyze the 10 % of videos deleted at the request of the beneficiaries and do not know how many of them are recent films in full version. The channels that have put online Lilo & Stitch And Captain America: Brave New World have been deleted for non-compliance with Youtube’s policies, says Jack Malon. However, the spokesperson refuses to say if the company took advantage of the advertisements broadcast in these protected videos.

Krzysztof Franaszek, founder of Adalytics who led this research, declares that he had discovered 9,000 possible copyright with copyrights with “Complete films, Netflix exclusives such as Tyler Rake 2, television programs, television series like the Griffin family and NCAA live university games”. In total, these videos counted more than 250 million views.

Films from each major Hollywood studio were found on Youtube from July 2024 to May this year, according to Adalytics. Larissa Knapp, responsible for the content protection of the Motion Picture Association, was informed of the results and finds them worrying.

As a reminder, this is not the first time that Hollywood has accused YouTube to take advantage of protected content. In 2007, Viacom continued Youtube for non-compliance with copyright. In 2012, Youtube won, protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

Pirates have many techniques to escape Youtube algorithms. Some download and voluntarily remove protected videos the same day to accumulate views before being caught. Others reversed the images or reframe the scenes to deceive content id. Others still place off -topic videos at the end of the films to cover their traces.

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