David Farnor | On 28, Dec 2015

Interstellar and Fast & Furious 7 were the most pirated movies of 2015, according to one company.

Piracy tracking firm Excipio monitored activity from the beginning of January through to Christmas Day, revealing that blockbusters were the most downloaded titles among pirates. In a year where cinemas were dominated by high-profile sequels, illegal downloaders followed suit, with the latest entry in the car franchise downlaoded 44.8 million times, followed by Avengers: Age of Ultron (41.6m), Jurassic World (36.9m) and Mad Max: Fury Road (36.4m).

While Jurassic World and, earlier this month, Star Wars have both broken box office records, though, piracy also appears to be on the up. Interstellar was the most pirated movie of 2015, as movies from the previous year tend to spend more time in circulation online, just as The Wolf of Wall Street led 2014’s chart. Interstellar’s 46.8 million downloads, though, were much higher than The Wolf’s 30 million.

Excipio, though, notes that the growth of overseas markets such as Brazil are also driving up numbers, as higher speed broadband becomes more widespread.

Rank	Film	Illegal downloads
1	Interstellar	46,762,310
2	Fast & Furious 7	44,794,877
3	Avengers: Age of Ultron	41,594,159
4	Jurassic World	36,881,763
5	Mad Max: Fury Road	36,443,244
6	American Sniper	33,953,737
7	Fifty Shades of Grey	32,126,827
8	The Hobbit: Battle Of The Five Armies	31,574,872
9	Terminator: Genisys	31,001,480
10	Kingsman: The Secret Service	30,922,987

The figures arrive just as the headlines are dominated once again by a pirated movie: Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. The movie, which has only just hit US cinemas and lands in the UK in January, was already pirated before its theatrical debut. The DVD-quality rip came from an awards screener sent out to people within the industry for their support in the Oscar ballot. This screener was traced by the FBI back to Andrew Kosove, co-CEO of Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind The Blind Side (itself an Oscar contender) and the upcoming remake of Point Break.

The Hollywood Reporter says that the disc was signed for by an assistant at his office, although Kosove claims he has “never touched” the screener, which suggests that someone in the office may have taken it and uploaded it to the web without his knowledge. Within its first day, it was pirated up to 600,000 times.

Kosove told the publication that he was “furious” at the leak. “It’s not an issue of just one movie,” he commented. “This is a threat to an entire industry.”

If global piracy appears to be on the up, though, with even industry insiders (however far up or down the chain) helping to fuel it, there is some hope to be found in the fall in piracy in certain markets, as the film world works to make things more accessible legally. Indeed, the growth of subscription services such as Netflix have made streaming affordable as well as easy for consumers, offering high quality visuals and the knowledge that their money is helping to support the creative industry.

One study by the IP Awareness Foundation found that piracy plunged 29 per cent in Australia the past year, thanks to the arrival of Netflix Down Under. 33 per cent of respondents who stopped pirating cited access to VOD services as the biggest reason for their change in behaviour, while one in five (21 per cent) said they stopped for moral reasons. 16 per cent said they stopped out of fear of viruses and being caught. According to the research, piracy has fallen in every age group, except those aged 35 to 49, since 2014.

As the new year looms, authorities continue to step up their anti-piracy activity. Netflix, meanwhile, is aiming to launch a full worldwide service by the end of 2016.

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