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UK piracy costs media £1.4bn a year – but how dangerous is streaming illegally?

ended 07. September 2026

New industry research published this week puts the UK's annual loss to sports, TV and film piracy at £1.4bn, with 16.8 million UK adults – nearly one in three – having used illegal streams in the past three months. 

Corsearch research has recorded an average of 7 billion visits a month to infringing sites. The piracy websites it monitored globally saw a total of 87 billion visits in 2024 alone, with 2025 tracking similar trends. 

Cost is the primary driver, while the stigma has faded, Corsearch says. Easy VPN access and pirate sites ranking highly in search results have normalised piracy for many users.

Joanna Betts, Vice President at Corsearch, said: “The growth in piracy carries real risk for consumers, as well as media and entertainment rights holders. Illegal streaming sites can expose users to malware, identity theft and content that redirects without warning to inappropriate material.”

  • How dangerous is it to illegally stream sites? Both legally and exposing you to scammers.
  • Does it open you up to malware and identity theft?
  • What do you think about piracy morally?

Responses by Monday.

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Francis West
CEO at Security Everywhere
I run live demos of real attacks for a living, and illegal streaming sites are one of the easiest ways to get hit. They're stuffed with malicious ads and fake "install this player" pop-ups, and a lot of them push malware straight onto your device the moment you click play. You're also handing your email and card details to sites with zero accountability if things go wrong, so identity theft isn't a stretch, it's just the next step. The £1.4bn industry loss is real, but the bit people miss is the personal cost. I've seen plenty of "I just wanted to watch the match" moments turn into a cleaned out bank account or a phone full of spyware.
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Editor
Tony Sanchez
Founder at Bridging Loan Directory
My own website was recently compromised through a vulnerable plugin. It was not connected to piracy, but it showed how easily an apparently normal online interaction can become dangerous.

A malicious script displayed a convincing fake Cloudflare verification page to around 30 visitors. Windows users were instructed to run a PowerShell command which attempted to download malware.

Illegal streaming sites provide fertile ground for similar deception because users may already expect pop-ups, redirects and unusual instructions. The danger is not limited to watching the stream; it includes what the site persuades someone to click, install or enter, potentially exposing personal and financial information.

Piracy is not victimless. Film, television, sport and journalism cost money to produce. Avoiding payment removes revenue from the people creating that content while potentially exposing viewers to consequences far greater than the price of legitimate access.
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Editor
Scott Gallacher
Director at Rowley Turton
Piracy is obviously wrong, both morally and legally. But Sony removing access to films that customers reasonably understood they had bought highlights an uncomfortable double standard.

If you never truly owned the film, what exactly did you buy? And if it can simply be taken back, you can understand why people question the fairness of being accused of “stealing” something they were never actually allowed to own.

That does not make piracy defendable. Quite apart from the legal issues, for anyone in a regulated profession where honesty, integrity and fitness and propriety matter, the potential consequences could be wildly disproportionate to the price of simply renting or buying a film legitimately.
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Editor
Nouran Moustafa
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
“Illegal streaming is unlawful, and the cyber risk is real: pirate sites can expose people to malware, stolen banking details and identity fraud. But when 16.8 million adults nearly one in three have streamed illegally in three months, this is not simply a story about people lacking morals. It is an affordability alarm.

“Government cannot keep increasing pressure on household finances, allow football, films and television to be split across expensive subscriptions, then act shocked when a black market fills the gap. Entertainment is one of the few escapes many people have from financial stress.

“Creators, production crews and businesses deserve to be paid, so piracy is not victimless. But responsibility does not sit only with viewers. Broadcasters must confront pricing and fragmented access, search engines must stop promoting illegal sites, and government must tackle why legal content has become unaffordable not simply criminalise the symptom after helping create the conditions.”