Report: EU online content piracy falling
November 29, 2019
By Colin Mann
Consumption of pirated online film, television and music content in the EU is falling, according to a new report by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
The research shows that between 2017 and 2018, overall access to pirated content in the EU fell by 15.1 per cent on average.
The fastest decline was seen in consumption of pirated music, which dropped by 32 per cent on average across the EU, followed by consumption of pirated films (19.2 per cent decrease) and consumption of pirated television content (7.7 per cent decrease).
However, the average Internet user in the EU accessed online pirated content 9.7 times per month in the first nine months of 2018, on both fixed and mobile devices.
The report draws on a data set of more than 70 billion Internet connections over a 21 month period between January 2017 and September 2018.
“Copyright-intensive industries, including film, television and music, support over 11 million jobs in the EU, and piracy, with the associated loss of revenue it brings, represents a direct threat to those industries,” notes Christian Archambeau, Executive Director of the EUIPO. “Despite the downturn in pirated consumption shown in our study, there is still much work to do to tackle this problem, and we hope these findings will help decision makers as they develop policies and solutions.
In addition, a second study published by the EUIPO shows that up to 13.7 million EU citizens stream unauthorised Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), at a cost of €941.7 million per year.
This can be through one-off payments, purchasing illegal set top boxes, or via long-term subscriptions sold by unauthorised retailers.
The average single user in the EU spends €5.74 per month on unauthorised IPTV, according to the report.