{"id":636147,"date":"2026-03-25T21:14:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=636147"},"modified":"2026-03-25T21:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:18:20","slug":"old-dstv-enemy-making-a-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/636147-old-dstv-enemy-making-a-comeback.html","title":{"rendered":"Old DStv enemy making a comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Online piracy is making a comeback due to a fractured streaming landscape and deteriorating user experiences with paid services like Netflix and DStv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a significant decline with the launch of affordable streaming services, online piracy has seen a massive resurgence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visits to illegal streaming sites climbed from 130 billion in 2020 to 216 billion by 2024, and the trend has accelerated into 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global visits to piracy sites reached approximately 216.3 billion annually from 2024 to 2025, indicating they remain popular among millions of users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the first wave of piracy, which was driven by a lack of legal options, the second wave is fueled by too many options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With exclusive content deals aimed at driving subscriptions, users cannot subscribe to only one or two streaming services to get all the content they want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2026 Decode Industry Survey highlighted the growing threat of content piracy to rightsholders and content service providers (CSPs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It found that the fragmentation of rights and the high price of legitimate services are major contributors to piracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Piracy has also evolved. The advent of live streaming, for example, has introduced new vulnerabilities and challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCommercialised re-streaming is the biggest single piracy threat, followed by leaks from distribution partner networks,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A big challenge is that piracy is a low priority for law enforcement agencies, which means pirate providers are seldom caught or shut down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most effective way to fight piracy, the survey found, was not to try to punish users. Instead, it is to make legal services more attractive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe most effective way to fight piracy is to super-aggregate streaming services and price them realistically,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCarrots are more effective than sticks. Individual consumers of piracy should not be sanctioned, but rather incentivised to use legitimate services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DStv\u2019s piracy challenges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In its latest financial reports, MultiChoice, which owns and runs DStv and Supersport, identified content piracy as one of its top ten critical risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While piracy initially only affected movies and TV series, pirate streams have made live sporting events accessible to South Africans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has reached such critical levels that MultiChoice is leading the fight against content piracy with cybersecurity company Irdeto and law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is an invisible war raging across Africa. In quiet corners of the Internet, content piracy is eroding the very foundations of Africa\u2019s creative economy,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that the data regarding piracy is alarming. In five African countries, 17.4 million visits were made to the top 10 piracy sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenya led with 7 million visits, followed by South Africa with 5 million. \u201cThese aren\u2019t just numbers. They represent untold losses in revenue,\u201d MultiChoice said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It added that, over the last five years, the boom in online viewing has supercharged illegal streaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

50% of UEFA Champions League viewership is pirated, and the EPL, Formula 1, NFL, NBA, and UFC lose billions in revenue due to piracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that piracy is spreading because of outdated legal frameworks, which make law enforcement around the crime challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSouth Africa only adopted the Copyright Amendment Bill and Performers\u2019 Protection Amendment Bill in 2024,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another problem is that many consumers in South Africa still believe piracy is a victimless crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice is fighting back<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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MultiChoice is deploying an advanced, multi-layered strategy to fight online piracy in South Africa and the rest of Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It includes machine learning analyses of online behaviour, flagging suspicious patterns, and using a ranking algorithm to prioritise takedown targets, fast and at scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also employed real-time detection for live events to detect and remove illegal streams before they go viral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forensic watermarking, which is embedded invisibly in MultiChoice\u2019s content, enables Irdeto to identify pirated material without disrupting the user experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany pirate platforms pose as legitimate businesses. Irdeto works with financial partners to cut them off from the payment ecosystems that fuel them,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice\u2019s 2025 annual report revealed that it initiated 233 anti-piracy court cases, a significant jump from 111 in the same period the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through its Partners Against Piracy (PAP) initiative, the group conducted over 155 successful raids, resulting in the arrest of 107 individuals across the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2025 financial year, there were numerous network takedowns. It reportedly shut down 4,351 illegal networks during the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2026 Decode Industry Survey findings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The sections below provide an overview of the 2026 Decode Industry Survey findings, based on feedback from industry players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How big is the threat of illegitimate consumption<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Main threats to content service providers\u2019 revenues<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Public perception about piracy of live premium sports<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Most effective way to prevent online sports piracy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The best way to ensure that people do not consume illicit services<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Online piracy is making a comeback due to a fractured streaming landscape and deteriorating user experiences with paid services like Netflix and DStv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":553122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,2054,20671,125],"class_list":["post-636147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-dstv","tag-netflix","tag-online-piracy","tag-piracy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636147"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636210,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636147\/revisions\/636210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}