Generally speaking, most people believe that committing piracy is not really a big deal. It's not that harmful. For most of us average folk, it's simply not feasible to sign up to and pay for a multitude of subscription streaming sites. We pick one service, maybe two if we are on a steady wage, but how many people can afford to indulge in memberships to Netflix, plus Amazon Prime, and HBO Max, and Disney+, and Hulu, and all of the other streaming services out there? It becomes much too expensive, so when it comes to cost, piracy can be understandable too.

WHAT THE CURRENT STATS SAY

Certainly, more and more people are turning to piracy, not just in TV and film, but across all industries. The international piracy stats in 2021 indicate:

• The USA is at the forefront of piracy with 17 billion clicks on illegal piracy websites in 2021 alone.

• Russia has the highest piracy rate in Europe with over 14 billion piracy site visits, while Indonesia is the leading country in Asia for piracy with 6 billion visits.

• 70% of online users find nothing wrong with online piracy while 34% of Gen Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) use stream-ripping programs and websites to download films and audio from streaming sites.

• Pirated videos get over 230 billion views a year.