More than 6 percent of North American households access pirated live TV services monthly -- costing communication service providers possibly more than $4 billion in revenue this year, Sandvine said Wednesday. It said premium TV, live sports, news and international content are the main drivers.

Revenue lost to online TV and film piracy will hit $51.6 billion by 2022, up from an estimated $31.8 billion this year, Digital TV Research said Monday. But the gap between online piracy and legitimate online revenue such as over-the-top services is widening, it said, saying OTT revenue overtook piracy in 2013. It said the Asia-Pacific region is expected to surpass North America next year as the largest region for piracy.

The nondiscrimination condition put on the Comcast/NBCUniversal deal, like FCC program carriage rules, requires a video programming vendor make a prima facie case of unlawful Comcast behavior, the Media Bureau said in an order in docket 17-166 Friday, rejecting a The Word Network (TWN) program carriage complaint. Many thought TWN's complaint faced long odds (see 1706090031). TWN argued the merger approval conditions obviated it from having to make a prima facie case of discrimination. The bureau said TWN didn't make the case of Comcast discrimination via reduced TWN distribution or by demands for exclusive digital programming rights since it didn't show Comcast acted due to TWN not being affiliated with the MVPD. It said TWN arguments that compare its network with Impact, another independent network, don't work as circumstantial evidence of discrimination, and arguments pointing to Comcast-affiliated networks like Syfy fall short since those networks aren't similarly situated in content to TWN. The bureau also said grant of exclusive digital rights wouldn't create a Comcast/TWN affiliation for purposes of the nondiscrimination condition. TWN outside counsel didn't comment.

Many analysts don't see virtual MVPDs as a significant threat to pay TV, but that misses how such services expect to be paired with other subscription VOD services, and that aggregation could be a big threat, nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon blogged Tuesday. Unlike traditional MVPDs, virtual ones don't try to provide all the TV content a customer might want and instead are customizing, targeting smaller niches rather than the general population, the analyst said. Dixon said the biggest threat to pay TV could be Amazon Channels, especially as it's beginning to add linear TV channels and as it's likely to next create targeted bundles of linear and on-demand channels.

With content companies seeking to enjoin VidAngel's streaming-based business model (see 1708240017), the company "requires the breathing space" that comes with an automatic stay under the Bankruptcy Code for the reorganization, Finance Director Patrick Reilly said in a docket 17-29073 U.S. Bankruptcy Court declaration (in Pacer) filed Wednesday as VidAngel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The bankruptcy filing lists $535,000 worth of unsecured claims to various vendors.

​Netflix had 5.3 million net subscription streaming additions in Q3, significantly better than the 4.4 million net additions it predicted in its July forecast, the company said Monday in its quarterly letter to shareholders. Netflix had 850,000 net adds in Q3 in the U.S., outpacing its July forecast by 100,000. Internationally, the company had 4.45 million net adds, much better than the 3.65 million it predicted in July. For the past four years, Netflix has taken the long-term view “that we’re in the early stages of the worldwide, multi-decade transition from linear TV to internet entertainment,” the letter said. That transition recently has been “unfolding right before our eyes,” the company said, citing Disney’s announced plans to launch direct-to-consumer services for ESPN and its other brands and the international expansion of CBS All Access. The letter mentioned nothing about Disney's decision to pull its films from Netflix starting in 2019 (see 1709080027). Linear TV networks are “cutting down on scripted series” as online services like Netflix have “ramped up activity,” it said.

The copyright infringement and Digital Millennium Copyright Act violation complaints against streaming service VidAngel (see 1708110038) added Marvel, New Line and Turner as plaintiffs. An amended docket 16-cv-04109 complaint (in Pacer) filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles with the additional plaintiffs follows a stipulation (in Pacer) filed last month by original plaintiffs Disney, Lucasfilm, Fox and Warner Bros. asking to file the amended complaint with the additional plaintiffs. Separately, Judge Andre Birotte of Los Angeles on Thursday granted (in Pacer) the content companies $12,706 they sought in attorneys' fees for their response to a VidAngel motion that the court said was baseless and filed in bad faith. VidAngel General Counsel David Quinto told us the additional plaintiffs are all subsidiaries of the existing plaintiffs and were added in an attempt to multiply any damage claim against VidAngel and put it out of business. He also said he didn't understand the sanctions based on a single motion when VidAngel hadn't been engaged in a pattern of conduct, as is typically the case when such an award is made.

The MPAA identified close to two dozen linking and streaming websites, direct download cyberlockers and streaming video hosting services, website portals for piracy apps, peer-to-peer networks, advertising networks and hosting providers that it says represent the scope and nature of online content theft. A letter to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative spelling out "notorious markets" outside the U.S. made public Tuesday said streaming piracy enabled by piracy devices preloaded with software for viewing of movie and TV programming is "an emerging global threat." It said the most popular such software is Kodi, and the growth of such piracy is "startling," with 6 percent of North American households having a Kodi device configured to access pirated content. Kodi didn't comment Wednesday. Streaming sites named include Sweden's Fmovies.is and Russia's Movie4k.tv, and direct download cyberlocker sites named include Ukraine's Nowvideos.sx. Website portals singled out in the MPAA letter include Thailand's IpPlayBox.tv and related sites, P2P networks include ThePirateBay.org and Switzerland's 1337x.to, hosting providers include Netbrella, and ad networks include Canada's WWWPromoter.

Content companies may face sizable problems as worldwide subscription VOD and advertising-supported VOD keep outpacing electronic sell-through and transactional VOD revenue growth for years, while growth in EST and transactional VOD isn't keeping pace with the decline in disc rentals and sales, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Tuesday. Data shows the trend of moving from ownership of movies and TV shows to paying for access to libraries is a global and not just U.S. phenomenon, he said. "The upgrade bonanza" from people buying new copies of content in new formats with better video quality may be over, the analyst said, pointing to services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video moving from HD to Ultra HD. He said the upgrade bonanza may be dying in the EST market as well, with Apple's announcement that buyers of an HD version of a movie would get a free upgrade to the Ultra HD version.

Weekly on-demand audio streams set a record the week including Sept. 28, surpassing 8.3 billion, said a Tuesday Nielsen report. For the first nine months of 2017, on-demand audio streams exceeded 287 billion, a 59 percent jump over the comparable 2016 period. But music ownership declined for the period, with album sales falling 18.3 percent, digital album sales dropping 19.5 percent and digital track sales plummeting 23.1 percent. Physical album sales were off 17.3 percent, demonstrating consumer preference for streaming. Vinyl albums, though, bucked the trend, with sales rising 3.1 percent for the year, now making up 14 percent of all physical album purchases.