‘Pirate’ TV Boxes Used By Quarter of Hong Kong Consumers

The Coalition Against Piracy, an initiative backed by companies including Disney, Fox, HBO Asia, NBCUniversal, BBC and the Premier League, has revealed the extent that piracy-enabled set-top boxes have penetrated homes in Hong Kong. Their YouGov survey reveals that one in four Hong Kong residents now use the devices with half saying that they’d canceled legal services as a result.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) was formed by 30 major players including Disney, HBO, and NBCUniversal. Several of the same media giants are also involved in the Coalition Against Piracy (CAP).

CAP coordinates anti-piracy efforts in Asia and is backed by CASBAA, Disney, Fox, HBO Asia, NBCUniversal, Premier League, Turner Asia-Pacific, A&E Networks, Astro, BBC Worldwide, National Basketball Association, TV5MONDE, Viacom International, and others.

From the outset, CAP has had the stated aim of tackling the pirate set-top box market. CAP General Manager Neil described their prevalence as “staggering” and a new report published this morning appears to back that up.

The newly released survey, commissioned by CAP and carried out by YouGov, reveals that one in four Hong Kong consumers own a set-top box that can be used to stream pirated TV and movies content.

“TV boxes BossTV (9%), Ubox (7%), EVPad (6%), Lingcod (5%), and Magic Box (4%), which come pre-loaded with applications allowing ‘plug-and-play’ access to pirated content, are among the most popular ISDs amongst Hong Kong consumers,” the study reveals.

It’s claimed that these devices, which often contain piracy-enabled Kodi setups, dedicated Android apps, and players configured to receive pirate IPTV services, are taking chunks out legitimate content distributors’ userbases. The survey offers some evidence to that end and the numbers are significant.

Of the quarter of all consumers who own a piracy-enabled set-top box, almost half (49%) told the survey that they had canceled all or some of their subscriptions to legal pay-TV services as a result.