Canadians have traded BitTorrent for Kodi with pirated TV, says report
Canadians who stream pirated TV and film content have shifted almost entirely from using BitTorrent technology to the more user-friendly Kodi software that’s commonly installed on TV set-top boxes running Google’s Android operating system, suggests a new report.
The Waterloo, Ont.-based network management company Sandvine analyzed anonymized data from 100,000 Canadian households last year and found about one in 10 had at least one settop box, computer, smartphone or tablet running the Kodi software, which can be used to access legal content but is more commonly known for offering links to TV shows and movies.
Sandvine estimates about seven per cent of the studied Canadian households were using Kodi to access pirated content, compared to six per cent of the U.S. households it looked at separately.
Another form of pirated streaming, which requires a monthly subscription to watch thousands of live TV channels from around the world, was estimated by Sandvine to be used by about eight per cent of the Canadian households.
Dan Deeth, manager of media and industry relations for Sandvine, says he believes most consumers know what they’re buying when they pick up one of the streaming boxes, which often tout a “free TV for life” offer.
But he says it is possible some may not realize they’re accessing pirated content.
“The average consumer might not know but they ’re probably fooling themselves or turning a blind eye, because to get those services legitimately you’d be paying over $100 a month to get 1,000 channels — all the pay-per-views, all the sports channels, all the premium HBOs — from a legitimate source.”