Combating Illegal Streaming Sites in France

On January 16th, 2020, a Paris courtroom handed down an order to leading French Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to prevent their users from accessing 36 platforms that were believed to offer pirated content.

These 36 platforms, across 77 domains, were believed to collectively have made more than 20,000 pirated movie titles available online.

The full list of domains can be found on page 5 of the court order.

What Was the Illegal Streaming Sites’ Reach?

Looking at Similarweb data, we can see that in the six months leading up to the ruling, those 77 sites attracted an average of nearly nine million unique visitors from the French Market.

At their peak, in August 2019, the sites experienced 10.3m unique visitors from France, an equivalent to 15.4% of the French population!

What Was the Impact of the Ruling?

Analyzing the weekly visits to these 77 sites shows a steady decline in visits since the ruling date as ISPs gradually enforce the ruling.

The traffic continues to decline, down to merely 894k visits for the week commencing March 9th, 2020, compared to a peak of 11.5m in the week commencing September 23rd, 2020.

Here we can see how effective the ruling has been in preventing traffic to these sites.

Government rulings that oblige ISPs to comply can be an effective tool in preventing access to pirated content.

This Is Just the Start: These Sites Operate in Multiple Markets

Analyzing where these sites received traffic from July to December 2019, shows that more than 25% of unique visitors came from the French Market.

This means that the ruling in France is only one step – the battle is far from over.

The next top 10 markets account collectively for another 11m average unique visitors per month.

We can see from the chart below that to truly stop these streaming sites in other markets, industry bodies would need to work with regulators in each individual market.

However, when targeting each market, attention should be given to those who are the key players in each market.

From below, we can see that different sites have different penetration rates in each market. For example, yts.lt holds more than 75% of the market share (of the sites analyzed in our set), yet only 10% in Belgium.

There are also likely to be other players who, while small in France, will drive a lot more traffic in other markets, therefore continually mapping each market is key.

What’s Next for France?

Although this ruling successfully removed these 71 sites, we can already see many new sites being established in the French market.

Looking at Similarweb’s audience interests – which shows other websites users also visit on the same day as visiting another of these now blocked streaming sites – can give an indication of new sites that are being implemented to plug the gap.

As users can no longer access the shutdown site, they simply continue searching for a new site.

For example, we can see cpasmieux.com traffic, another site offering ‘free HD streaming’ has increased its traffic consistently in France since the ruling, with over 850k unique visitors in France in February 2020.

Keeping up with these fast-growing sites is critical to ensuring copyrighted content does not end up on pirated sites.

Stay up to date with new emerging streaming sites, or book a demo today to see how Similarweb can help you keep on top of the ever-changing streaming landscape.

by Similarweb