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Parks: 20% of young adults steal passwords for OTT service, cost video industry $500M

July 08, 2015

Putting a size on the security exposure for authenticated streaming video services, Parks Associates said that 6 percent of U.S. broadband homes use a video service that belongs to someone living outside the home.

The cost of this digital piracy amounts to $500 million a year, the research company claims in its latest report, The Cost of Piracy.

Password stealing/sharing is particularly prevalent among adults 18-24, the report says, with 20 percent of that young-adult group using a password that belongs to someone they don't live with. The unethical behavior declines as the demographics get older, with only 10 percent of adults 25-34 admitting to this kind of piracy.

For a pay-TV industry still looking for traction for TV Everywhere, so much unauthenticated viewing may not be a good thing.

From the article "Parks: 20% of young adults steal passwords for OTT service, cost video industry $500M" by Daniel Frankel.

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