New Delhi: Piracy has for a long been threat to the Indian entertainment industry, with most recent occurrences of Marquee Bollywood movies like Raid 2, Sikandar, Jaat, and The Bhootnii falling prey to online leak/piracy.

Movie pirating, online leaks of these movies were crucial because of the illegal releases of the aforementioned movies just a day before their formal release in May 2025, thus causing a major concern among the film studios.

On May 21, when India observes Anti-Terrorism Day, Essel Group Chairman and former Rajya Sabha MP Dr Subhash Chandra tweeted on microblogging site X, “Terror networks don’t survive on ideology alone. They survive on money. And pirated contents is one of their quietest sources.”

As per Media Partners Asia data, India’s online video piracy user is at 90.3 million, followed by Indonesia at 47.5 million, Philippines at 31.1 million, Thailand at 18.2 million and Vietnam at 16.0 million users.

However, reports state that this huge scale of piracy can’t be dubbed just as action of fringe elements eying smaller benefits but a more heinous instrument causing substantial financial losses, eroding billions of revenue from the real makers.

The needle of suspicion over the early leakage of these movies, analysts point out, could be insiders at post-production studios. Analyst even point out that alarming leak could be perpetrated by content delivery services and even cinema exhibition companies.

“The Rob Report” released by EY and the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) in October 2024 had said that the size of India’s piracy economy was Rs 224 billion in 2023 (Rs 22,400).

Of the total prated content money in 2023, Rs 137 billion (Rs 1,300 crore) was generated from pirated content from movie theaters while Rs 87 billion (Rs 8,700 crore) was generated from OTT platforms’ content. The potential GST losses of up to Rs 43 billion (Rs 4,300 crore) were estimated to have been incurred, said the EY-IAMAI study.

“Despite a 150% rise in subscription revenue since the pandemic, “The Rob Report” reveals that 51% media consumers in India access content from pirated sources. Streaming emerged as the largest source of pirated content at 63%, followed by mobile apps at 16%, other avenues such as social media and torrent contributed 21%. Managing multiple subscriptions, unavailability of desired content online and steep subscription fees emerged as the top three reasons for viewers to indulge in pirated content,” EY-IAMAI study had mentioned.

The EY-IAMAI report further revealed that the age group between  19-to-34 had more consumption of pirated content, amounting to 76% of total consumption of pirated content.

Citing the gender diversity in consumption of content, it highlighted that women preferred OTT shows while men watched more of classics. 

“40% of pirated content is sought out in Hindi, closely followed by English content at 31%. On an average, Indians spend nine hours weekly, consuming pirated content out of which 38% of the time is spent watching OTT content and 22% is spent watching films,” the report added.

The EY-IAMAI report further revealed that the age group between  19-to-34 had more consumption of pirated content, amounting to 76% of total consumption of pirated content.

Citing the gender diversity in consumption of content, it highlighted that women preferred OTT shows while men watched more of classics. 

“40% of pirated content is sought out in Hindi, closely followed by English content at 31%. On an average, Indians spend nine hours weekly, consuming pirated content out of which 38% of the time is spent watching OTT content and 22% is spent watching films,” the report stated, adding that Piracy is more prevalent in Tier II cities than Tier I cities.