As we enter 2026, the battle for digital content protection is reaching a critical turning point. To understand what the next 12 months and beyond hold for the media sector, the Friend MTS team sat down with experts from across the business to hear their thoughts on the future.
The consensus is clear: the era of viewing piracy as a "victimless" nuisance is over. From the integration of advanced AI to a fundamental rethink of how we enforce the law, here is how our team thinks the industry will evolve in 2026.
Tackling Organised Crime
The team believes that one of the major shifts for 2026 involves changing how we categorise the threat of piracy. For too long, the individuals behind illegal streams have been viewed in isolation. This year, video pirates may rightfully become broadly known as the criminals they are—taking their place on the list of Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) alongside human traffickers, cybercriminals, and drug smugglers.
Improvements with AI
As law enforcement agencies increasingly recognise content theft as a highly profitable, low-risk revenue stream for OCGs, the technology used to combat them must keep pace.
At FMTS, we expect to see enhanced AI Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) models being deployed by anti-piracy experts to identify threats much faster than is possible today. This leap in speed will be a game-changer for live events, significantly denting the millions of dollars that pirates generate from illegal sports streams every year. You can find out how FMTS is leading the way with this kind of monitoring here.
The Era of Global Collaboration
We anticipate a surge in multi-jurisdictional investigations where content pirates are treated like any other high-level criminal, backed by robust, forensic evidence collection.
Success will depend on the close collaboration of:
- Content owners and rights holders
- Broadcasters and streaming platforms
- Specialist technology providers
- Local and international law enforcement
- Local and international legislative and regulatory bodies
This united front is essential if we are to reduce the millions of instances of piracy detected by FMTS in 2025 alone. The astronomical revenue loss associated with these figures has an impact on major industries that governments, legislators and regulators will no longer be able to ignore as we move toward 2030.
Enhancing Enforcement
Traditional enforcement is hitting its limits. In 2026, more territories will recognise that standard notices are often insufficient against agile criminal networks. Consequently, we expect a shift toward dynamic blocking at the regulatory, judicial, and legislative level.
As the industry's technical and legal understanding of these tools deepens, oversight systems will move to facilitate the copyright holder's right to protect their assets. Proven approaches, such as dynamic IP blocking, will become the standard, allowing for the real-time disruption of illegal feeds as they happen.
Tackling IPTV Threats
One of the greatest challenges for 2026 remains the threat from IPTV piracy as they attract paying viewers. OCGs continue to launch closed IPTV subscription services that look and feel like legitimate platforms but at a fraction of the cost; and it’s clear that cost is a huge factor that drives pirate audiences.
Recent research from The Athletic and The New York Times highlights the complexity of this "willingness to pay" gap. Their data shows that 47% of sports fans have admitted to streaming matches via illegal means. However, the research also suggests that the desire for legal content is high; many consumers already pay significant sums—often exceeding £80 ($100) a month—for various subscriptions. When the "legitimacy gap" between a £150-a-month legal bundle and a £10-a-month illegal IPTV service becomes too wide, casual viewers churn into the arms of OCGs, unwittingly funding criminal networks.
Tackling this requires an industry-wide effort to bridge the value gap while simultaneously cutting off the pirates' infrastructure. In 2026, the focus will be on pressuring known pirate hosting providers to stop acting as safe havens for criminal activity. 2026 will be the year of accountability, and those providing the means by which pirates operate will come increasingly under scrutiny.
2026 promises to be a year of real change, and this will require inputs from a wide range of stakeholders: through faster, AI-driven detection, international legal cooperation, and a focus on the infrastructure of OCGs, the industry can finally move from a defensive crouch into a proactive strike.
Want to find out more about the future of video fingerprinting and content protection? Contact the FMTS team today to learn how we can secure your 2026 strategy.
