A new study reported online traffic for an anime piracy site vastly overshadowed media streaming giants Crunchyroll and Hulu.
Media information website Average Being revealed that an anime piracy streaming service had taken a spot in the top 10 global streaming websites based on online data gathered by web analytics company Similarweb. The report claimed the anime piracy site in question was now the world's eighth most visited streaming site, placing it above major streaming services such as Prime Video and Hulu.
The anime piracy website also far surpassed the online traffic to the major anime streaming platform, Crunchyroll, which only ranked 22nd. It also notably held a remarkably high average visit duration of 17 minutes and 28 seconds per user, which only YouTube's average watch time of 20 minutes and 30 seconds beat.
Anime and Manga Piracy on the Rise
A spokesperson from Average Being further commented on the report, stating that most users of the anime piracy website were "forced to do it." They claimed many anime fans could not watch certain shows through legal means because of possible licensing issues in their respective countries, which meant legal access to some series was largely dependent on a user's place of residence. While the anime piracy website's use of third-party ads might annoy most who visited the page, the spokesperson also believed the ads were not a large enough inconvenience to deter viewers if the anime piracy website was the only streaming service that guaranteed access to their desired content.
Japan's Content Overseas Distribution Association, a trade association responsible for overseeing the international distribution of Japanese content and anti-piracy operations, previously released a study claiming the country's entertainment industry had lost between $14.2 billion to $16.5 billion due to piracy of Japanese media in 2021 alone. The figure was a notable five-fold increase from the estimate provided by a similar study the organization conducted in 2019. CODA attributed the rapid growth of piracy of Japanese content to the outbreak of COVID-19 and the overall increased demand for online streaming services as the pandemic forced people to spend more time indoors.
The study additionally included a more in-depth breakdown of the losses, with reports stating that online piracy of anime and video media had lost anywhere between $6.8 billion to $10.5 billion in 2021. Manga and other published Japanese content were additionally estimated to have lost $3 billion to $6.2 billion to online piracy during the same period.
Source: Average Being