EGEDA US

News from Egeda

April 2011

11 Billion euros lost to piracy

Internet piracy grew by 8.6% over last year and the cultural industries calculate the value of the losses to be at 11 billion Euros.

High and still climbing – illegal downloads continue their, up to now, unstoppable growth trend and rates of Internet piracy have increased for the third consecutive half-year period. Latest figures are 8.6 % higher than the same period last year, with losses of nearly 11 billion Euros in 2010. Music remains the market sector with the most damages, although piracy in the print media sector is growing at an especially alarming rate. Movies, however, have shown a slight reduction, mainly due to the proliferation of releases of 3D films, not “pirateable” up to now.

The total value of pirated audiovisual works in the second half of 2010 reached some 5.56 billion Euros, quadrupling the volume of legal sales in and industry which generates 4% of Spain’s GDP and was over 1.5 billion for this same time period. These are some of the figures released in the latest report rights management organizations which include EGEDA, Promusicae, CEDRO, SGAE, ADICAN, FAP and ADIVAN contracted to be done.

The weighted average was 78.6% for the group of markets analyzed (music, movies, books, and videogames), which amounts to a 3.4% increase over the previous year. Once again, music was at the top of the list, at nearly 100% (97.9%). This sector was followed by films, at 75.8%, almost 8% less than a year ago.

Especially worrying is the dramatic rise in the print media sector for the second quarter in a row, at 43.5%, facing a year-to-year increase of 120.8% and, to a lesser extent, videogames, which at 66.2%, reflected an increase of 26.6%.

By sector, in terms of hard cash losses, the value of pirated goods in music was 3.05 billion Euros; in films, 1.543 billion; videogames, over 3.83 billion, and in books, 581 million.

On the other hand, standing out during the presentation of the study was the growth of legal offerings, with nearly 600 cultural content websites of all kinds on the Internet.