Study: Italy sees drop in content piracy
July 15, 2019
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Content piracy is still a problem in Italy, although the number of illegal acts in 2018 dropped by 8 per cent compared to the previous year.
This is the conclusion of a study by Ipsos on behalf of Italy’s Federation for the Protection of Audiovisual and Multimedia Content (FAPAV).
The rate of piracy stood at 38 per cent, with movies being the most pirated content (33 per cent), followed by series (21 per cent) and TV programmes (20 per cent).
However, the piracy of live sports events is on the increase, with 4.7 million Italians admitting they have illegally watched live sports content, via streaming on their devices (PC, tablet, smartphone, smart TV), compared to 3.5 million the year before.
The study estimates that there were over 22 million acts of sports piracy (mainly football, Formula 1 and MotoGP).
IPTV accounts for a quarter of the total number of pirates, or more than 5 million individuals, which is one million more compared to the previous survey. Digital is still the preferred means of piracy (33 per cent), while download/P2P accounts for 20 per cent.
The Italian audiovisual industry’s revenue shortfall due to piracy is estimated at €600 million, with almost 6,000 jobs at risk. However, the impact is greater on the Italian economy as a whole: €1.08 billion is the lost revenue by all economic sectors, €455 million is the estimated damage in terms of GDP, while €203 million represents the lost tax revenue.