I was curious too and checked the article but skimming it, instead of a total, I found this:
A new analysis from MUSO, a U.K.-based anti-piracy analyst […]
With the study being done by a clearly biased person/group and that large omission, I think it’s fair to assume that the % of total web traffic going to pirates might not have gone up all that much, maybe it even went down.
It appears that general browsing trends went up year after year for pretty much every month we have data for. Some months, up to 45% more traffic from the previous year. I might be misreading this chart, but this looks like a bigger increase than just 12% over multiple years.
Figure 2. ISP monthly normalized downstream traffic change during the COVID-19 pandemic with percentage increase compared to the previous year.
How much has total web traffic increased in the same time? I feel like the number is meaningless without something to compare it to.
I can’t think of anything in the last four years that would cause an increase in total web traffic. /s
I was curious too and checked the article but skimming it, instead of a total, I found this:
With the study being done by a clearly biased person/group and that large omission, I think it’s fair to assume that the % of total web traffic going to pirates might not have gone up all that much, maybe it even went down.
It appears that general browsing trends went up year after year for pretty much every month we have data for. Some months, up to 45% more traffic from the previous year. I might be misreading this chart, but this looks like a bigger increase than just 12% over multiple years.
https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/7/253468-a-year-in-lockdown/fulltext
Thanks for pulling the data