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November 27, 2019 News

The Observatory has published today the Online Copyright Infringement in the European Union study

This report analyses consumption of copyright-infringing music, films and TV programmes in the 28 EU Member States. It does this on the basis of a rich set of data collected between January 2017 and September 2018, covering both fixed and mobile devices, as well as the main methods of access: streaming, downloading, torrenting and stream ripping.

The good news is that digital piracy is declining. Between 2017 and 2018, access to pirated content fell by 15 % overall, with the sharpest drop being seen in music (32 %), followed by film (19 %) and TV (8 %).

However, piracy remains a significant problem, and more so in some Member States than others. The report seeks to explain why by analysing some of the socio-economic, demographic and other factors that could influence consumption of pirated content. Among the socio-economic factors, per capita income and the level of income inequality seem to have the greatest impact on consumption of pirated content: high per capita income and a narrow income gap are associated with lower levels of illicit consumption. The overall size of the market, as measured by the number of internet users in a country, also matters: where all other things are equal, average consumption of pirated content is lower in larger Member States. A higher acceptance of digital piracy, as evidenced in the EUIPO’s IP Perception study, is also associated with higher consumption of pirated content. The full report can be found here.