No, Spain is not one of the countries with the highest piracy rate, as some officials in the audiovisual content sector usually claim. It is, in fact, the fifth state with the lowest piracy rate per user in the entire EU, as reflected in the report from the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) on 2023, which is published this Thursday and to which elDiario.es has had access.
With 8.5 monthly accesses to pirated content, Spaniards were almost two points below the European average, which is 10.3, and just a little more than one point above the country that registers the lowest in this regard. which is Italy with 7.3 monthly accesses per user. At the opposite extreme are the Baltic and northern European countries, with Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania (26.2, 23.2 and 21.7, respectively).
This year’s analysis is also the first to account for the impact of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) services, a technology that allows the transmission of television content online and that in some cases is being used to access paid broadcasts, such as football and other sports. However, the EUIPO points out the difficulty of quantifying this category, which occurs through private networks and devices, which is why the impact figures are based on visits to pirate IPTV registration websites, not on actual consumption. .
As in the rest of the European countries, television content is the most pirated in Spain (48% of the total). However, here Spain is also in the opposite trend, being one of the 9 members of the 27 where this type of crime decreased compared to the previous year. Spain is also among the countries with the lowest number of monthly accesses per Internet user for movies, although in the case of music, pirated consumption grew.
The data contrasts with the statements of the president of the football association, Javier Tebas, who recently stated that “40% of the Spanish population pirates”, asking for tougher legislation and the possibility of being able to demand that operators give him access. to the data of users who connect to IPTV services, despite the fact that these also have uses that fall within the law.
“If we don’t solve this problem, we are going to have a very complicated situation. The day we have the legislation it will already be obsolete, because the pirate is ahead,” Tebas continued, announcing that LaLiga will file “criminal complaints” against “Google, in Ecuador, in Brazil and in France too” for refusing to remove apps IPTV from the Android store. In Spain, the football club employers’ association has requested the indictment of the top officials of Google, Apple and Huawei in a case against one of these apps, as elDiario.es exclusively reported.
“According to the study, Spain does not fare badly in terms of piracy in 2023 (a trend that we already observed in 2022),” says Nathan Wajsman, chief economist of the EUIPO, in statements to this medium. Despite everything, Wajsman affirms that “it is still a very high rate, which shows that we must continue raising awareness among citizens about the risks of accessing pirated content.”
The report from the EU Intellectual Property Office highlights that television piracy through IPTV is a growing problem in Europe. A previous analysis by this organization already estimated the income from this type of business at 1,060 million euros, and considers that it has increased by 10% to date.
Piracy where there is no alternative at market price
The EUIPO highlights that piracy levels at European level remain high and how these are related to population and youth unemployment and income inequality. “This study sheds light on the consumption of digital content and the factors that drive piracy. It is imperative to address the causes of this behavior, which often come from the lack of access to affordable legal content and the need for greater public awareness of the consequences of piracy,” explains its director, João Negrão.
The report concludes that “the volume of legal supply contributes to reducing piracy in almost all areas.” In turn, he emphasizes that a greater number of legal platforms and television channels is associated with less piracy. “Our analysis points to economic and demographic factors that can influence the levels of piracy, for example the proportion of young people in the population or the degree of economic inequality in society, but there are also other very important factors such as the perception and attitude towards piracy, the availability of a legal content offer and knowledge about this legal offer,” says Wajsman.
Taking the age factor into account, the study shows that the young population tends to consume more pirated content, especially in the case of movies. Another variable directly proportional to this crime is inequality: the greater the inequality present in a country, the greater piracy it tends to present.
However, sometimes the results show the growing complexity of this phenomenon. EUIPO econometric analysis shows that higher GDP per capita is associated with lower film piracy, but higher piracy of live sporting events. This suggests that income level can have a complex effect on piracy, depending on the type of content.
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