Online film and television piracy has climbed again as legal streaming becomes more expensive and less convenient, according to data and accounts examined by the Guardian. The shift suggests that the industry’s multiplication of paid platforms is eroding the simple consumer proposition that once made services such as Netflix an effective alternative to illicit downloading.
The legal market has changed markedly from the early streaming era, when a single low-cost subscription could unlock a broad catalogue. Viewers now routinely find programmes divided among several services, removed from subscription libraries or offered only as separate purchases. In Sweden, for example, Netflix plans were reported to cost as much as 199 kronor, compared with a 79-kronor monthly launch price in 2012. Some paid tiers also include advertising, while geographical limits can restrict what subscribers see.
That fragmentation creates both a price and an access problem. The Guardian reported that an average European household was spending close to €700 annually on at least three video-on-demand subscriptions. Even after paying, a household may still be unable to locate a particular series, film or edition without adding another service or buying it outright. Such gaps have encouraged some viewers to use virtual private networks or unofficial streaming sites.
Traffic estimates from piracy-monitoring company MUSO indicate the scale of the rebound. Visits to piracy websites fell to 130 billion in 2020 but rose to 216 billion in 2024, the Guardian reported. Unlicensed streaming, rather than conventional file downloading, accounted for 96% of television and film piracy in 2023. The change matters because browser-based services and apps can make illicit viewing feel more immediate to users who regard torrenting as technically difficult.
Sweden illustrates the reversal. The country was closely associated with The Pirate Bay before Spotify and Netflix helped make licensed access easier. Yet 25% of surveyed people in Sweden said they pirated content in 2024, with the trend driven largely by people aged 15 to 24. Interviews cited by the Guardian also included viewers who had never stopped pirating and others who had recently returned when legal services did not carry what they wanted.
The evidence does not establish that subscription prices alone cause piracy, and the reported traffic figures cover visits rather than individual users. It does, however, point to a widening gap between what audiences expect from digital access and what the increasingly divided streaming market provides. For platforms and studios, reducing that gap may require more than enforcement: catalogue availability, interoperability, pricing and the quality of the viewing experience all shape whether legal services remain the easiest option.
