The shadow content market in Ukraine is 20 times larger than the legal one in terms of traffic, which is a critical obstacle to the development of streaming platforms. Megogo has a separate department to combat piracy.
The shadow content market in Ukraine is 20 times larger than the legal one in terms of traffic, which is a critical obstacle to the development of streaming platforms. Megogo has a separate department to combat piracy.
"The entire chain bears the losses: from rights holders and platforms to studios, actors, screenwriters, and directors who create content. These are also uncollected taxes for the state," said Valeria Tolochyna, Marketing Director of Megogo, in an interview with Forbes Ukraine.
According to her, the streaming platform spends about UAH 4.5 million per year on anti-piracy activities.
"We have a department of 14 specialists who are involved in blocking illegal content, monitoring sites, and legal work," the marketing director noted.
Over the course of a year, the team removed 534,000 links on Google and over 15,000 illegal sports broadcasts.
Tolochyna also noted that blocking works better in the case of sporting events than with films. For example, when hundreds of illegal streams are blocked during big matches, part of the audience switches to the legal service. A case in point was the broadcast of the Usyk-DuBois II fight, when 312 pirated streams were blocked, mainly on Twitch and YouTube. At the same time, in the case of films, blocking is not as effective, since viewing can be postponed.
"Protected content is monetized better. Content for which we receive protection rights from partners shows, on average, 30-40% better results," added Valeria Tolochyna, director of Megogo.
