The reality in 2022 is that piracy will impact content creators within the industry in some shape or form. This poses several questions, most notable of which is: Why is it so easy for users to search for pirated content online and receive more results than they can count?

See, Google does not go out of its way to address adult film industry complaints as its priority is to focus on piracy in mainstream film and music.

Officially, Google says it’s against piracy of any kind and that it works hard to keep stolen material out of the hands of people searching for that content. The company has stated, “In addition to removing pages from search results when notified by copyright owners, Google also factors in the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site as one signal among the hundreds that we take into account when ranking search results.”

However, the reality is anything but even handed for adult content, which can negatively impact marketing, brand value, earnings and brand perception.

1. Piracy affects your Marketing

Marketing is an essential component in driving sales, awareness, page traffic and more for content creators, especially those who have their own websites and optimize them based on SEO. However, if search engines are connecting users to pirated content, this means content creators cannot analyze site traffic to understand how users arrive at their pages or use this data to inform marketing strategy.

In addition to legal consequences, users of pirated content hosted on stream sites are more susceptible to being exposed to software viruses, phishing emails and pop-ups on those sites. This can affect user psychology as they’ll possibly become less willing to engage with the posts or pages of content creators if they have already had a negative experience with a content site. The ripple effect makes it harder to market to these users.

2. Piracy affects your Brand Value

What is brand value? It’s the financial amount a brand is worth. It can also reference the values a brand embodies. Pirate sites typically offer content that is free or substantially discounted from the market rate; this can induce some people to purchase the product who would not otherwise do so, or return to that stream site if the content is free. The negative impact this has on content creators is that users may be less inclined to see the need to pay more for the same content.

3. Piracy affects your Earnings

Piracy is no longer confined to tech-savvy users on the dark web. Instead, anyone can download content behind a paywall and sell access to it elsewhere in bulk, or scrape sites via software. This is costing creators millions of dollars globally each year. The broader impact on industry revenue is also worth noting, as studios have their productions stolen and pirated sometimes within days or hours of release. I myself have lost nearly $100,000 in stolen content.

4. Piracy affects your Brand Perception

Pirated content does not have any quality control, so consumer experience and satisfaction are greatly diminished. Even if the original creator makes high-quality content, pirates may distort it or sell it with audio interruptions, their own edits, low-quality fidelity and more, leaving a bad impression on consumers. They may be less likely to seek it out from its proper source and some users have gone so far as to complain to the original creators about the poor quality of the stolen content they have consumed online. This can demoralize creators, cause anxiety and worse.

Ultimately, content creators need to protect their brand through issuing DMCAs, either manually or through an automated services company; the investment is well worth it in the end on many levels.