Piracy impact analysis · Streaming revenue

How much revenue does piracy put at risk for Netflix, and where?

Piracy sites got over 185 billion visits in 2025, and TV is still the biggest category. I sized Netflix's exposure two ways and checked them against each other. Top-down, from the FY2025 segment revenue Netflix reports for UCAN, EMEA, LATAM and APAC. Bottom-up, from piracy traffic turned into lost subscriptions. The Dec 2024 segment table is only used for per-member figures.

By Sree Harsha Mynampati. An independent analysis using only public data. Every figure comes from a published source listed at the bottom. The model is a scenario calculator with its assumptions in plain view, not a loss figure, because no source publishes one for Netflix. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Netflix. Data current as of October 23, 2026.

185B+

Visits to piracy sites worldwide in 2025. That's down 14.2% from 216.3B in 2024, the biggest yearly drop since 2020.

MUSO, 2025 data (185.6B exact figure via secondary coverage)

45.3%

TV's share of all piracy visits in 2025, still the top category. That works out to about 84B visits (my calculation: 45.3% × 185.6B).

MUSO 2025 category shares, via Sci-Tech Today

325M+

Paid memberships, passed in Q4 2025. Netflix no longer reports member counts. The last regional table is Q4 2024, at 301.63M.

Netflix Q4-24 shareholder letter; Q4 2025 results coverage

$45.2B

Netflix revenue in FY2025, up 16% from $39.0B. The latest quarter (Q3 2026) was $12.87B, up 11.8% year over year.

Netflix Form 10-K, FY2025; Netflix Q3 2026 Shareholder Letter

How big piracy is in 2025

Piracy traffic dropped a lot in 2025. MUSO counted over 185 billion visits, 14.2% fewer than the year before and the steepest fall in its data. That's still a huge number, and most of it is TV (45.3% of visits), which is where Netflix competes. MUSO has logged 1.2 trillion piracy visits in total from January 2020 to December 2025.

Total visits to piracy sites, all categories

2020 and 2023 are approximate, as MUSO reported them. MUSO itself says "over 185 billion" for 2025. The exact 185.6B comes from secondary coverage, and it matches MUSO's 14.2% drop. Source: MUSO.

Piracy visits by category, 2025 (share of total)

MUSO's full 2025 report is paywalled, so the 2025 category totals aren't public. The 84B TV figure is my own arithmetic (45.3% × 185.6B), not something MUSO published. Source: MUSO 2025 data via Sci-Tech Today.

Top countries for piracy visits, 2024 (all categories)

The US is the biggest single market, with over 12% of global visits. For TV piracy specifically, the top countries are the US, Russia, Ukraine, the UK and Canada. Per internet user, Canada and Ukraine rank highest. Europe as a whole had 36B piracy visits in the 12 months to March 2026, or 78.75 per internet user. Sources: MUSO 2024 data via TorrentFreak and Piracy Monitor; MUSO Europe figures, April 2026.

More traffic doesn't always mean more risk. Russia is #3 with 15.4B visits (about 7% of the 2024 total), but none of that is Netflix revenue. Netflix suspended service there on March 6, 2022 and never came back, and it only had about 700K members there to begin with. You can leave Russia out of the bottom-up model below. India is a different case: it's #2 for traffic (17.6B visits), but it sits in APAC, where Netflix earns the least per member ($7.34 a month, against $17.26 in UCAN). Lots of traffic, not much revenue. Sources: Reuters, Mar 6, 2022; Netflix Q1 2022 shareholder letter; Netflix Q4-24 shareholder letter.

What the data can't show: MUSO doesn't publish piracy visits by Netflix region (UCAN, EMEA, LATAM, APAC). Country data is as fine as it gets, so any regional piracy number would be my own allocation, not a measurement. That's why the top-down model uses one rate for every region and the bottom-up model works at the global level.

The model: revenue at risk by region

Nobody publishes what piracy costs Netflix, so I didn't make up a number. The dollar figures start from revenue Netflix actually reported: FY2025 segment revenue from the 10-K. The question is simple. If piracy puts some share of each region's revenue at risk, how many dollars is that? UCAN is the biggest region ($19,957M of $45,183M), so even a flat rate hits it hardest. The per-member figures are secondary. They use the Dec 2024 regional table, because Netflix stopped reporting members and ARM after that.

Last reported regional table, quarter ended Dec 31, 2024 (used for per-member figures only)

SegmentPaid membershipsMonthly ARMQ4 2024 revenue

UCAN

89.63M+4.82M net adds in Q4 $17.26 $4,517M

EMEA

101.13M+5.00M net adds in Q4 $11.11 $3,288M

LATAM

53.33M+4.15M net adds in Q4 $8.00 $1,230M

APAC

57.54M+4.94M net adds in Q4 $7.34 $1,212M

Global 301.63M $11.702024 average n/a

Source: Netflix Q4-24 Shareholder Letter (Jan 21, 2025), Regional Breakdown table. These are the last membership and ARM numbers Netflix published before dropping both in 2025. Dollar base: FY2025 streaming revenue by region (Form 10-K, Note 2, Revenue Recognition): UCAN $19,957M · EMEA $14,515M · LATAM $5,358M · APAC $5,354M · Total $45,183M. Q4 2025 revenue by region (no member counts given): UCAN $5,339M · EMEA $3,873M · LATAM $1,418M · APAC $1,421M.

Note: this is a scenario, not a measured loss. The dollars come from Netflix's reported FY2025 revenue by region. The only assumption is the revenue-at-risk rate, and you can change it. I check it against a bottom-up estimate further down. The equivalent-membership numbers use the Dec 2024 table, the last one Netflix reported.

Revenue-at-risk rate1%

The share of each region's FY2025 revenue lost to piracy. It's the same for every region. Piracy levels do vary by country (Section 01), but there's no regional breakdown to weight it with. The bottom-up check below gives a sense of where it should sit.

$452M

Revenue at risk per year at this rate, based on FY2025 revenue by region

3.22M

Equivalent memberships at risk (Dec 2024 ARM, last reported)

$37.6M

Revenue at risk per month

1.00%

Share of FY2025 revenue ($45.2B)

$45.18B

FY2025 revenue base (Form 10-K)

SegmentFY2025 revenueAt risk / yrEquivalent memberships (Dec 2024 ARM)

UCAN$19,957M……

EMEA$14,515M……

LATAM$5,358M……

APAC$5,354M……

All segments$45,183M……

UCAN has the biggest dollar exposure because it has the most revenue ($19,957M in FY2025), not because I assumed more piracy there. The rate is the same everywhere. Equivalent memberships are each region's at-risk dollars divided by its Dec 2024 ARM × 12. Sensitivity check: using FY2025 revenue and roughly 313M average members (an approximation, halfway between the last reported 301.6M and the 325M milestone), ARM comes out around $12.03. That's about 3% above the last reported $11.70, so membership figures at current ARM would be about 3% lower. That's small next to the range of the main assumption. For context only, UCAN also has the heaviest measured piracy: the US is #1 for visits and Canada is #1 per user. That doesn't feed into the calculation.

Low scenario

$113M / yr

0.25% of FY2025 revenue

Revenue-at-risk rate: 0.25%
Equivalent memberships: 0.80M

Central scenario

$452M / yr

1.00% of FY2025 revenue

Revenue-at-risk rate: 1%
Equivalent memberships: 3.22M

High scenario

$1.36B / yr

3.00% of FY2025 revenue

Revenue-at-risk rate: 3%
Equivalent memberships: 9.65M

Bottom-up check: from piracy traffic to lost subscriptions

The top-down rate is a judgement call, so I built the same number a second way, starting from the traffic in Section 01. Take TV piracy visits, keep the ones involving Netflix titles, work out how many people that is, estimate how many of them would otherwise pay, and multiply by what a subscription is worth. If both methods land in the same place, the top-down rate is on solid ground.

Netflix share of TV piracy visits12%

My estimate, since nobody publishes piracy share by service. For context, Netflix has about 17% of global SVOD subscriptions (Digital TV Research forecast, Nov 2023). That measures something different, but it suggests 12% is on the cautious side.

Piracy visits per viewer, per month20

This turns visits into people. As a rough check: MUSO's ~79 visits per internet user per year in Europe, divided among the 22–24.5% of people Parks says pirate, comes to about 27 visits a month per pirate (my calculation). 20 is below that.

Share who would otherwise subscribe10%

The lost-sale rate. Studies of TV piracy keep finding it's low, because most people who pirate wouldn't pay anyway. 10% is a middle-of-the-range guess. Move the slider to see the spread.

Leave out Russia (no Netflix service since March 6, 2022; removes 7.1% of visits, based on its 2024 share)

…

Revenue at risk per year, bottom-up

…

Implied revenue-at-risk rate (vs FY2025 revenue)

…

Lost subscriptions (at $11.70 ARM, last reported)

…

People pirating Netflix titles (estimated)

…

Difference from the top-down figure

With the default inputs the two methods come out close: about 1.2% bottom-up and 1% top-down. That's why I use 1% as the central scenario. Everything in the bottom-up model is an assumption except two inputs: the traffic (about 84B TV visits, from MUSO's 2025 total × TV share) and ARM (Netflix, last reported Dec 2024).

How this compares with published estimates

Parks Associates · Apr 2023

$113B+

Forecast total piracy losses for US streaming services through the end of 2027, with the US film and TV piracy rate going from 22% (2022) to 24.5% (2027). Spread over about five years, that's roughly $22B a year (my arithmetic). Next to that, my $1.36B high scenario for Netflix worldwide looks low. Either Parks' forecast is high, or this model is conservative. The two don't measure the same thing: Parks covers several years, only the US and the whole industry, while this model covers one year and one company.

Caveat: a US-only forecast. Still cited in Oct 2026 and I found nothing newer.

AAPA · Oct 2026

€5.8B / yr

Possible yearly losses to legitimate pay-TV providers from illegal IPTV in Europe and North Africa. 34.4 million people used illegal IPTV in 2025.

Caveat: pay-TV, not streaming; a modelled estimate

Citi analyst estimate

~$25B / yr

Yearly revenue streaming services lose to password sharing, with Netflix's share put at about 25%. Sharing and piracy are separate problems. Of Parks' $9.1B US loss to the two combined in 2019, only about 28% (~$2.5B) was piracy.

Caveat: password sharing, not piracy; one analyst's estimate

Why takedowns don't fix it

Part of the reason this revenue stays at risk is that takedowns work on single files and links, while pirated copies spread faster than they can be removed. Three examples:

Telegram: a forward is a new copy

When a post in a public channel gets forwarded, the forward is its own copy in the new chat. A copyright complaint (to dmca@telegram.org) can get the original deleted, but the forwarded copies stay. Telegram does have a "Restrict Saving Content" setting that blocks forwarding, but it's off by default and only the channel owner can switch it on. Pirate channels don't. Complaints only cover public channels, too: Telegram's FAQ says it doesn't act on private groups and chats. Telegram says it has over 1 billion monthly users (March 2025).

Sources: Telegram API documentation on content protection (core.telegram.org/api/content-protection); Telegram blog (Dec 2021) via BleepingComputer / gHacks; user figure via TechCrunch.

Google Drive: one takedown, one file

Google told the US Copyright Office (in its Section 512 study comments) that it uses hash matching to stop files with valid takedown notices from being shared publicly on Drive again. Re-encode or repackage the file and the hash changes, so the same show goes back up under a new link, which needs its own takedown.

Source: Google comments, US Copyright Office Section 512 study. Google's often-quoted "10 billion URLs removed" is about Search, not Drive, so I haven't used it here.

ACE: going after the operators

Netflix is a founding member of ACE and sits on its governing board. ACE is an MPA-led group of 50+ companies, set up in 2017, that goes after the people running piracy services instead of individual files. Its Operation Switch Off took down an illegal IPTV ring: 31 suspects, 29 raids, more than 125,000 users cut off in Italy, and the ring's Telegram sales channels shut down.

1,000+

Illegal streaming sites ACE says it has shut down

1,400 to <200

Sites offering illegal movies, 2019 vs after ACE action

Sources: alliance4creativity.com; HDTVTest reporting NYT coverage (around Jul 2024); ACE press release on Operation Switch Off (around Jan 2026).

Sources, method and open questions

Netflix stopped reporting members and ARM after Dec 2024. Per-member figures use that last official table; dollar exposure is anchored to FY2025 segment revenue.

Piracy traffic, 2025: MUSO, anti-piracy solutions page ("over 185 billion" visits, accessed Oct 23, 2026) and the 2025 Piracy Trends and Insights report (down 14.2%, the steepest drop since 2020; TV still the largest category; 1.2 trillion visits from Jan 2020 to Dec 2025). Exact 185.6B figure via En Acción (Oct 12, 2026); 2025 category shares via Sci-Tech Today, citing MUSO 2025 data.
Piracy traffic, 2024 and earlier: MUSO, "What 216 Billion Visits to Piracy Sites Reveal About Global Media in 2024"; country figures via TorrentFreak and Piracy Monitor reporting on MUSO data; Europe figures from MUSO (April 28, 2026).
Netflix revenue by region (dollar base): Netflix FY2025 Form 10-K (filed Jan 23, 2026), Note 2, Revenue Recognition: FY2025 streaming revenue by region, UCAN $19,957M, EMEA $14,515M, LATAM $5,358M, APAC $5,354M, total $45,183M. The filing says: "During the year ended December 31, 2025, we discontinued the reporting of membership numbers, including average paying memberships and average monthly revenue per paying membership." That makes the Dec 2024 table the last official per-member data.
Netflix regions (per-member base): Netflix Q4-24 Shareholder Letter (Jan 21, 2025), Regional Breakdown table (shareholder letter, PDF); FY2024 streaming revenue by region from the Form 10-K.
Netflix, more recent: Netflix Form 10-K FY2025 (SEC): $45.2B revenue, $10.98B net income, 29.5% operating margin, ad revenue over $1.5B in 2025. Memberships passed 325M in Q4 2025 (TheWrap; Nasdaq/Zacks, Jan 20, 2026). Q4 2025 revenue of $12.05B and revenue by region from the Q4 2025 shareholder letter. Q3 2026: revenue $12,874M (up 11.8%), operating income $4,459M, operating margin 34.6%, net income $3,664M; FY2026 revenue guidance around $51.1B at a 31.5% operating margin; 2026 ad revenue expectation cut to about $2.7B (Netflix, Inc., Q3 2026 Shareholder Letter, October 20, 2026; filed as Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K). Viewing: 95B hours in H1 2025 and 96B in H2 2025 (Netflix "What We Watched" reports), so about 191B for the year (my sum). The $11.70 global ARM is the 2024 average, via SQ Magazine's roundup of Netflix-reported data.
Telegram: forwarding and content protection per Telegram API documentation (core.telegram.org/api/content-protection); protected content launched Dec 7, 2021, per Telegram's blog as reported by BleepingComputer and gHacks; 1B+ monthly users per Pavel Durov, March 19, 2025, via TechCrunch (company figure).
Google Drive: Google's comments to the US Copyright Office Section 512 study (hash matching on Drive; takedowns per file).
Estimates: Parks Associates press releases (April 2023; Jan 15, 2020); AAPA illegal IPTV report (Oct 2026) via Advanced Television and Piracy Monitor; Citi analyst estimate via Lookout Santa Cruz.
ACE: alliance4creativity.com (membership); HDTVTest reporting NYT coverage (around Jul 2024) for site shutdown counts; ACE press release (around Jan 2026) for Operation Switch Off.

What I couldn't pin down: (1) Nobody publishes a piracy-loss figure for Netflix, so Section 02 gives a range, not an answer. The top-down rate and the bottom-up inputs (Netflix's share of TV piracy, visits per viewer, lost-sale rate) aren't measured anywhere public. Comparing the two methods narrows the range, but it's still an estimate. (2) There's no piracy data by Netflix region, so I can't weight the rate by where piracy is heaviest. Country data is background only. (3) The dollars use FY2025 revenue, but the per-member figures use the Q4 2024 table. Members have since passed 325M with no regional breakdown, so those figures are approximate and marked "last reported, Dec 2024". (4) MUSO's 2025 TV visit total isn't public (the full report is paywalled), so the 84B figure is worked out from the 45.3% share. (5) Telegram's design means forwarded copies survive takedowns, but Telegram doesn't publish how many copies exist, so the spread can't be measured from public data. (6) MUSO counts visits to piracy websites. A lot of Telegram and Drive sharing happens off the web, so these totals probably undercount it.