🏴‍☠️ Pirates Capture More Than Half of the Video Streaming Market

According to Byrdin, this past winter, the ratio between pirated sites and legitimate audiovisual services stood at approximately 60 to 40 in favor of the illicit segment.

The persistence of piracy has become the primary barrier for an industry that has already hit a ceiling in terms of extensive growth. The legal market, which generated 178 billion rubles by the end of 2025, could instantly expand to 445 billion rubles if piracy were entirely eradicated. Furthermore, taking into account the inevitable rise in subscription prices, experts estimate the true potential of the Russian IT and media industry at 600 to 700 billion rubles.

The main challenge in this fight lies in the stance of regulators, who frequently underestimate the scale of the problem and the extent to which the illegal ecosystem undermines law-abiding platforms.

Nevertheless, the industry is preparing new countermeasures. In addition to traditional web blocking and ongoing efforts under the anti-piracy memorandum (through which Yandex has already removed over half a billion links from search results over the past seven years), AIV plans to focus on choking off the pirates’ financial flows.

Beyond online casinos, illegal websites host a substantial volume of standard advertising for mainstream products and services. The association intends to restrict this financial lifeline by establishing centralized blacklists of brands and platforms that cooperate with pirate networks.