Content Piracy is a Real Threat to Africa’s Creative Economy

“Piracy affects the entire film & television production chain, from executive producers to directors, writers, cast and crew – the perception that it’s okay to pirate content because big broadcasters have plenty of money is a complete misnomer,” said Thandi Ramathesele, MD at izwimultimedia, speaking during a piracy panel discussion at MIP Africa 2024.

“Stealing content – effectively what piracy is – affects our culture, our society and mutes our voices. It’s not about taking money from big broadcasters – it takes food out of the mouths of our creatives – how many of our artists die without a cent to their name?”

The panel, moderated by MultiChoice Group Channel Director: Premium Channels Waldimar Pelser, also offered insights from Chola Makgamathe, Chairperson of the Copyright Coalition of South Africa and Tobias Maja, Senior Anti-Piracy Manager at Irdeto.

Getting Serious

Makgamathe agrees that piracy has a wide-ranging effect on entire creative industries because there’s still a perception that ‘being creative’ isn’t a ‘serious job’ like law or medicine. “The most recent figures I can access show that the cultural creative industries across various sectors in South Africa contribute at least 3% of South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – R161 billion, which is equivalent to what the agriculture industry contributes,” she explained. “For the creative industry, there’s also a lack of understanding about how people can protect their livelihoods. We need more education around how people can own the rights to their work, how they can monetise it, what rights they have and which laws protect them.”

Irdeto’s Maja says that content piracy across our continent is rife, largely because of outdated laws that aren’t fit to protect content in the digital age. “Outdated law makes it hard to prosecute people for piracy – and if they are prosecuted, the fine amounts to a slap on the wrist,” he says. “In many jurisdictions, law enforcement and even the judiciary don’t fully grasp that piracy is a criminal industry both making huge profits for itself and destroying the industries which help creatives pay the bills”.

He says that many digital piracy sites are set up as legitimate operations, for which customers pay a low subscription fee in order to access the content they want to see and believe they are accessing content legally. “There’s no down-side for the pirates because they don’t pay to illegally acquire the shows and films they then put up on servers and sell subscriptions to. Producers and content owners never see any of that money”.

Love Content? Pay for it

“On one hand, it’s heartwarming to know that your content is being appreciated by viewers on the other side of the world, if there’s no benefit to the people who created it, there’s no industry – and no more content to come,” says Ramathesele. “We need more education for artists and creatives about how to protect themselves and their rights – and advocacy to raise awareness in society about piracy. We love that viewers love our content and that’s why we make it – but having content stolen from us creates unemployment, impacts youth development and destroys the value chain. People will start to notice that the content they consume to relax or be entertained, isn’t there anymore – and it’ll be too late. We need a massive education drive – a collaboration between the production industry, broadcasters, the legal fraternity, business, advertisers and marketing entities, because without broadcasting platforms and without audiences, there’s no revenue”.

Power in Partnership

Makgamathe agrees that those partnerships are critical in helping raise awareness about piracy, but that we should also be celebrating our successes more widely. Irdeto have already taken down 40 000 streaming links in 2024, but it’s simple for pirates to pop up a few days later with new servers and carry on, if they’re not prosecuted effectively. “We need our young influencers to get news about shutting down piracy, to trend and we need to capture people’s attention to show them how big the impact on the industry is,” she says. “We need everyone on board – including Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to help us take down sites. We can only tackle this if we work in a multi-layered, interdisciplinary way – together”.

Africa-wide multi-stakeholder initiative, Partners Against Piracy (PAP), of which MultiChoice is a partner across our continent, is working alongside local governments and prosecutors to actively address the issue of copyright infringement. The initiative aims to strengthen government agencies through collaboration to facilitate information sharing, enforce IP laws more strongly and combat privacy.

MultiChoice South Africa signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Justice and Correctional Services on 7 March 2024 that reflects the South African Government’s commitment to fight broadcast and content piracy, which continues to drain the fiscus of billions of Rands, annually. This agreement was the first of its kind on the African continent and marks a line in the sand between those who pirate content and those who create and disseminate it.

Crucially, the MoU sees the Department, PAP and its partners agree to engage formally and informally on the establishment of policy and legal frameworks to address the combating of piracy and cybercrime on electronic communications networks and computer networks.

It also cements an agreement to establish a joint team to identify urgent amendments to legislation and regulations to effectively and efficiently deal with content piracy on electronic communications networks and computer networks. The Serious Commercial Crime Unit of the Hawks, South African Police Services and the Cybercrime Units in various provinces have already been mobilised as part of this effort and have led several successful raids against pirate site operators.

Ramathesele ended the discussion with a plea to Department of Sports, Arts and Culture Minister, Gayton McKenzie, to take the lead and help drive initiatives to protect the industries within portfolio against piracy. “We need a societal change to help people understand this isn’t ‘sharing’, it’s ‘stealing’. We need the government, the department, the feisty new minister, the police and the justice system to collaborate with us to help fight a crime that impacts the entire country’s economy – as well as individual and family livelihoods”.

Content piracy involves the unauthorised acquisition, use, sharing or selling of copyrighted content. Put simply, piracy is stealing. If you are aware of any individuals or organisations involved in piracy, you can report them anonymously at +27 11 289 2684 or piracy@multichoice.co.za.