Number of Russian piracy sites rises but traffic falls: reports

The number of piracy sites in Russia increased by 43% last year, according to data from anti-piracy firm WebKontrol, despite increased efforts to block such websites.

According to the data, seen by TorrentFreak, while torrent sites accounted for just over 20% of total piracy sites, these torrent sites hosted the first publicly available copy of “premiere titles” in 87% of cases.

These torrent copies then appeared on streaming and hosting sites, which make up the majority of piracy websites.

The data comes despite increased efforts to block piracy websites in Russia.

Olga Valigourskaia, CEO of WebKontrol, told TorrentFreak that the overall level of traffic on piracy sites was falling despite the greater number of individual sites.

She suggested that this could be a response of online pirates to the blocking measures, attributing the increased number of sites to the strategy of creating “mirror sites” for torrent and streaming services.

“Administrators of the pirate resources tend to create mirror sites as quickly as possible after their original domains are blocked,” Valigourskaia said. “Rights holders, on the other hand, instantly block these mirrors using an administrative procedure, so there is no chance for these sites to gain any significant traffic.”