Contents
Anti-piracy campaigns have never failed
If we could recall and count all the anti-piracy campaigns targeting the British public since the advent of the VCR, we'd be interested, because we have absolutely no idea.
But perhaps volume isn't particularly important. Perhaps the more pertinent question would be: has an anti-piracy campaign aimed at the public over the last 40 years really worked?
Those who answered "yes" are absolutely right, bravo. Those who answered "no" are also absolutely right. There are no losers in this game, because it's all a matter of perception.
No anti-piracy campaign has ever failed
Since anti-piracy campaigns cost money, it's extremely rare for anyone to admit that their campaign didn't work. It's far more likely that a seemingly unsuccessful campaign will be celebrated as the campaign that prevented things from getting even worse. You see, while it's always a question of perception, it's also a question of timing.
When lobbying the government to contribute to publicly funded campaigns, it's the perfect time to mention threats: to specific industries, jobs, the economy in general, law and order, crime waves, terrorism, whatever fits the mood of the moment. When the campaign is over, highlight the positives, tell everyone that the money was well spent, thank the government, and then say no more.
Over time, probably just a few months, a few discreet mentions of piracy developments are an excellent way of not confronting funding sources with embarrassing news of failure. The campaign itself was a success, it's everything else that changed.
What never really changes is the underlying sense of threat. The threat of an imminent catastrophe that, until now, has never happened. Not because a catastrophe was never likely, but because everyone pulled together to prevent it. Just as everyone must work as a team to avert future threats.
Threats to the public
For several months now, an anti-piracy campaign has been underway in the UK. On the one hand, the BeStreamWise campaign aims to make consumers of illicit IPTV services aware of the various threats: the threat of falling victim to a scam, for example, or even fraud. When it comes to criminals, anything is possible.
The threat of identity theft shouldn't be dismissed either, but the really important thing is to enable the public to a) become aware of the threat b) feel the growing anxiety and sense of imminent danger and c) abandon illegal services before something terrible happens. When everyone is out of danger, d) click here to subscribe to one of our legal subscription services and safe.
The threat of being caught and sent to prison
The BeStreamWise campaign site wisely avoids the potential legal consequences of using pirate services. However, in the fight against piracy, the presence of legal threats is rarely missed.
The apparently separate but coordinated media campaign run by the British tabloids, which really took off in November and has hardly stopped since, is running in parallel with the BeStreamWise campaign.
Despite seemingly similar objectives, the BeStreamWise campaign receives only a few mentions in at least dozens of articles. Instead, the Federation Against Copyright Theft often answers the questions raised in the articles, all of which convey exactly the same message, as the example below illustrates.
In the same way that millions of people in the UK were convinced that if they played the lottery "It could be you!", it seems that the aim here is to make the chances of prosecution just as compelling. Having seen over 50 of these articles published since late November in a wide range of national and local online news media, we used various tools to analyze their text and AI to identify the most important keywords. Across all articles, keyword similarity was rated at 82%, which is extraordinary when there are no common news events underpinning these articles.
With a few exceptions, the sentiment was negative, as expected, with the most popular keywords in all the articles shown below. The situation as presented seems... a little threatening perhaps?
No one should be offended when broadcasters and other rights holders defend their products against piracy. When IPTV providers, resellers and all the other players in the supply chain are arrested and, horror of horrors, find themselves sued in private, it's literally the worst thing that can happen.
People who consume pirated content have their own balance to consider. It's not hard to imagine that someone, somewhere, has decided that the bullying tactics amplified by the media - no, more than that, completely dependent on the media - are an excellent way to tip the balance in the right direction.
The bottom line: do frightened people hack less?
It's hard to say whether fear has ever played a role in reducing piracy, but one thing is certain: no one has ever scared someone into becoming a loyal customer; the effect is temporary at best, counter-productive and completely ineffective at worst.
A new study reveals that men (also targeted by BeStreamWise when it comes to live sports) are not only ready to immediately reject negative external messages, but their response significantly exacerbates the problem that threatening messages aim to reduce.
The study, Psychological Reactance to Anti-Piracy Messages Explained by Gender and Attitudeswas published last month. According to its authors, it "uses evolutionary psychology as a theoretical framework to examine whether messages based on real-world anti-piracy campaigns provoke a reaction, and whether this effect is explained by gender and pre-existing attitudes".
Threats could make things worse
In short, the researchers exposed adults to the messages contained in three previous real-life anti-piracy campaigns.
The first, Get It Right (From a Genuine Site)conveyed a prosocial message, while Crimestoppers (CrimeStoppers-uk.org) and Graduated Response (French diagram of the three warnings) carried threatening messages. A control group received no anti-piracy messages.
"The results indicate that the prosocial message has no significant effect, eliciting neither a response nor a decrease in piracy for either gender or attitude group," the researchers write.
"Threatening messages, in particular Crimestopperswhich focuses on the risk of computer viruses, had a polarizing effect on the group with pro-hacking attitudes. Men with favorable hacking attitudes reported an increase, and women with favorable hacking attitudes reported a decrease in their hacking intentions."
"The results support our evolutionary theoretical proposition that response to messages is adaptive, with men being more sensitive to threats to their freedom from external forces than women."
The graph above shows that women with pro-piracy attitudes reacted positively to threats. However, men with the same pro-hacking attitudes reacted to all types of anti-hacking messages with a significant increase in their motivation to hack.
The "Crimestoppers" group records an increase of over 30 %, which could have implications* for the current BeStreamWise campaign. If nothing else, they share almost identical messages.
Crimestoppers (Threat message 2)
The communication was produced by crime reduction charity Crimestoppers (crimestoppers-uk.org) and funded by film industry trade body BASE (British Association of Screen Entertainment). The campaign focused on the risk of computer viruses, identity theft, money/data theft and hacking, using specific figures from reported cases to legitimize their claims.
After four decades of anti-piracy campaigns that have failed to scare pirates into compliance, and 15 years of ISP blocking measures that have mostly failed to disable pirate services, the solution to the problem seems more elusive than ever. Given that no anti-piracy company believes its market is on the brink of collapse, confidence must be high that the same strategies that have always fueled the market will continue to do so well into the future. This could be the clearest signal that something needs to change.
Whitman, K., Murad, Z. & Cox, J. Psychological Reactance to Anti-Piracy Messages explained by Gender and Attitudes. J Bus Ethics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05597-5
Summary available here
*BASE is a member of the BeStreamWise campaign.
French (France) 
French (Canada) 
French (Belgium) 
English 
German 
Spanish