Spain’s entertainment industries lose €1.8BN a year through piracy
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Juan Fernandez Gonzalez
| 10 April 2018

Spanish broadcasting, video, music and sports industries are losing over €1.8 billion per year due to content piracy.

According to the Observatorio de la piratería y hábitos de consumo de contenidos digitales 2017 report by GFK, the coalition of content creators and LaLiga, digital piracy has seen a decline in Spain for the second consecutive year in terms of absolute figures, although the percentage of individuals accessing pirate content remains the same.

During 2017 there were over four billion illegal digital accesses to content, 6% less than in 2016 and 9% less than in 2015. However, around one in four Spaniards have watched pirate content at some point in 2017, and the profit loss suffered by the industry actually increased by 4.1% to reach €1.86 billion.

According to the report, piracy has an impact on employment within the industry. “A scenario without piracy would allow the creation of 20,375 new direct jobs, 29% increase and 122,250 more indirect jobs,” it said. In addition, €575 million in taxes a year are lost by the Government due to piracy.

“It seems the trend initiated in 2016, maintains itself ... we believe the results show that the commitment undertaken is the right one and that our claim to strengthen and expedite the enforcement of legislative measures, as well as to increase the Public Administration’s staff and technical resources, while carrying out awareness campaigns, is clearly a very good decision,” said Carlota Navarrete, director of the coalition of content creators.

Films and TV series are the most pirated content, with nearly a third of Internet users saying they have downloaded or streamed illegal content. In addition, 16% of online consumers watched football matches on pirate channels.

“After the creation by LaLiga of a department specifically for fighting audiovisual piracy and the protection of TV rights, the LaLiga Legal Department has blocked 12 websites domains. In addition, thanks to Marauder there have been almost 168,000 videos in social networks and 124 apps blocked, reaching a blocking percentage of 98.44%,” explained the head of the LaLiga Antipiracy Department, Emilio Fernandez.