A study by Group-IB shows that Russia’s Internet piracy market fell to $50 million (about Rmb338 million) in 2021, with revenue from illegal video content falling for the third year in a row, according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant.
Experts say the cost of piracy maintenance infrastructure is also rising as Russian regulators continue to block suspicious transactions by online casinos and gambling, the main sponsors of video piracy.
At the same time, Group-IB experts warn that viewer interest in pirated content continues to grow as foreign film distributors suspend their work in Russia and international streaming platforms stop providing services to Russia.
Following the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, several Western Internet companies have announced the suspension of their operations, product sales and other activities in Russia.
Kommersant has noted that Russia has seen an 80-250% increase in the number of search requests wanting to install pirated versions of Windows 10 over the past 90 days due to problems with the licensed version of the system. In June this year, the number of searches for requests to download Microsoft Excel for free grew rapidly (650%).
