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Turn Pirates Into Paying Subscribers

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Like spinning cotton candy out of thin air, we all love the idea of creating something out of nothing.

When it comes to OTT streaming, we believe there are a few magic tricks you can have up your sleeve to create revenues where none have existed before. That’s because technology now gives operators the potential to transform OTT streaming pirates into loyal – and perhaps more importantly, paying – subscribers.

As we discussed in a previous blog post, a study by Ampere Analysis found that service providers and rights holders can unlock up to $28.3B in new revenue, every year, by reducing sports streaming piracy.

Majority of Sport Fans Willing to Subscribe

The report also shows many sports fans, particularly those who believe piracy is wrong, would be willing to pay for online streaming services.

Although a hardcore 26 percent of illicit viewers say they will never pay, there are still 74 percent of sports fans who are willing to switch from illegal streams to legitimate ones – if there’s a legitimate alternative available or if the illegal streams became unreliable.

Incentives for Honest Users

As streaming providers address the triggers that lead consumers to seek out illegal services, they have the power to transform piracy from a cost of doing business into a revenue opportunity. With an understanding about pirate users’ motivations and behavior, OTT providers can target specific interventions and promotions at those viewers most likely to switch to legitimate services.

But a crucial first step is to cut off the illegal streamers by adding technologies to identify fraudulent viewers. OTT broadcasters and streaming platform providers worldwide are using GeoComply’s award-winning and easy-to-implement geolocation fraud detection solution, GeoGuard, to identify and block users trying to illegally access their geographically restricted content via a VPN or proxy. The user message at the blocking presents an ideal opportunity for OTT broadcasters to drive these viewers to legitimate subscription services.

Thomas Thomas, director of OnDemand & BritBox Service Operations at ITV, speaks to the power of GeoGuard in protecting premium content. “GeoGuard has delivered a great return on investment for us,” he says. “Deploying a VPN blocker like GeoGuard is a no-brainer – why wouldn’t you block unauthorized viewers from using your streaming service?”

To learn more about the effectiveness of VPN and proxy detection in stopping streaming pirates and turning them into paying subscribers, read our latest white paper: The Next Generation of Content Protection – Moving Beyond IP for Location Verification.

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