How Pirated Content Is Sinking SA’s Creative Economy (And Your Cybersecurity)

Photo by Ron Lach via Pexels

Let’s talk about pirates, no, not the kind that take to the high seas, nor the talented ones that kick a soccer ball around; we are talking about the kinds that pirate content – movies, series, and music.

South Africa (02 December 2025) – The Partners Against Piracy (PAP) have launched a campaign to show everyday South Africans that piracy is a problem that affects us all, and none of us should stand for it because in robbing an industry, we truly rob ourselves.

For Chola Makgamathe, the Chairperson of the Copyright Coalition and PAP, her commitment to creative justice was forged early in her career. She argues that intellectual property is not a dry legal concept. It is the currency of culture and the safeguard of livelihoods. She has witnessed first-hand that piracy is not a ‘victimless hack’, but it is, in reality, cancelled productions, crews who are never booked, and the painful silence of stories that never get made.

And in South Africa, where our stories are a vital part of understanding, healing and moving forward, ensuring that they get told, get seen by the right people and supported financially is essential!

For too long, the war against content piracy has been fought in courtrooms and on balance sheets. We have focused on the arrests, the criminal syndicates, and the staggering, multi-billion Rand figures of lost revenue. While these facts are undeniable, they often fall short of eliciting sustainable behavioural change in everyday consumers. Why? Because the consumer is often desensitised to a threat they believe is happening to some massive broadcaster or a wealthy production house. But the brutal truth, as argued by PAP, is this: in robbing an industry, we are committing an act of self-sabotage that steals the very foundation of our own lives.

Without focusing on the financial elements, rather looking at South Africa set in a dystopian narrative where pirated content could cause a collapse. Drawing on the creative imaginations of the storytellers whose very stories are pirated, PAP shares some imaginative insights into a world where pirated content wins…

Imagine the entrepreneur in Maboneng whose catering company relies on film sets, or the skilled labourer in Cape Town who builds props, or the student in Durban who dreams of a career in digital media. If the creative economy collapses, these jobs vanish overnight. Affiliated industries like fashion, design, and technology follow close behind. When production companies cease to exist, so does the investment into research and development (R&D) for cameras and software, severely diminishing our ability to create and share our own content. This is not just a loss of African television; it is a terrifying reversal of digital evolution, leaving us with fewer opportunities to build wealth, share culture, and connect.

Ok, you can switch off your imagination for now. The big picture is so much bigger, and as we learn about the detrimental effects of pirated content on the entertainment industry, we also learn how consuming it poses very real threats to our own cybersecurity.

Did you know that every time a consumer accesses an illegal IPTV setup (you know, those little black boxes that give you access to all the content you could ever dream of), they are not only funding a criminal network, but they are also exposing themselves to substantial cybersecurity risks. These risks include malware, phishing schemes, and identity theft. We believe we are saving R99 a month, but we are inadvertently signing over our personal data and bank account details. This is how the criminal underworld thrives.

The good thing here is that if you are perhaps engaging in some of this content, you can stop right now and boost the South African economy instead, all the while protecting yourself.

The fight against content theft must be a movement driven by every South African, from the DStv Explora subscriber to the student trying to get by. So the challenge starts with making an informed choice. Are you up for that challenge?

Makgamathe calls for modern, digital-ready legislation and a notice-and-takedown mechanism that works at the speed of the internet. Additionally, we urgently need informed consumers who choose legal platforms and, critically, call out illegal ones. Piracy is not an inevitability; it is a choice. We must make the choice to protect our local jobs, our cultural heritage, and, ultimately, our own future.