Giving Good Legal Options Works: Interest In Netflix Outpaces Pirate Options In Brazi

[Len]

If you were to have asked anyone in the film industry or the MPAA about the country of Brazil within the past decade, it's quite likely that they would have thrown their hands into the air and told you what a detestable hotbed of piracy and copyright infringement the nation was. And, hey, they would have been right. The simple fact of the matter is that there are some countries where the downloading and streaming of films and television is more common than others. The obvious next question to ask for any business interested in reversing this trend would be: why? The answer always seemed obvious to me: there is a customer demand that the legitimate options are not fulfilling. Many in film and television instead decried a lack of strict copyright enforcement and everybody wanting everything for free, instead.

Well, with a recent study published by Google, it seems we are getting an answer as to who answered that question correctly, and it wasn't Hollywood. The trend in Brazil, beginning in 2016 when streaming services were expanded in the country, is the stagnation of piracy and the adoption of legitimate streaming Services.
 

While there’s still a long way to go, it’s interesting to hear the progress that’s being made not only in the West but also piracy hotspots further afield. This week, Brazil’s Exame reported on a new study published by Google.

Focused on movies, one of its key findings is that local consumer interest in Netflix is now greater than pirate alternatives including torrents, streaming, and apps. As illustrated in the image below, the tipping point took place early November 2016, when searches for Netflix overtook those for unauthorized platforms.

There's really only one lesson to be learned here. If an industry meets customer demand in a way that is convenient, enjoyable, and in a way that provides good value, the hassle and illegality of piracy are too much of a bother. The best way to defeat piracy is by embracing new business models, and that mantra is exemplified in a company like Netflix, which revolutionized how video content is consumed across the globe. Even if Brazil's appetite for piracy remains steady, as it has, media companies can simply out-compete it in terms of eyeballs by being awesome.
 

“We’re not lowering piracy but this does show how relevant the [Netflix] brand is when it comes to offering content online,” Google Brazil’s market intelligence chief Sérgio Tejido told Exame.

If an industry views piracy as completely irrelevant other than its use as a market research tool for what the public wants, then all that matters is the success of Netflix and its peers. The pirates are going to pirate, but meanwhile an entire new customer base and revenue stream has been uncovered in a country lamented as a pirate haven. And the popularity of Netflix in the country is on the upswing largely because of how great the service is.
 

Importantly, nine out of ten users in Brazil said they were “extremely satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the service, up from 79% in the previous year. An impressive 66% of subscribers said that they were “not at all likely to cancel”, a welcome statistics for a company pumping billions into making its own content and increasingly protecting it, in the face of persistent pirate competition.

Make a great product and give it to consumers in the way they want at a good value and suddenly piracy isn't the threat it was made out to be. That's been the Techdirt formula for years. It's great to see it in action.