Music piracy declines by 32% in Europe with users still accessing pirated content nearly ten times a month according to a recent report by the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The report shows that there was a 15% EU-wide decrease in access of pirated online content from 2017-2018 but that pirated content was accessed 9.7 times per user per month in the first nine months of 2018, on both fixed and mobile devices.
Although consumption of pirated online film, television and music content in the EU is falling, but nearly one billion Euros is collected by illegal IPTV providers in the EU each year. The fastest decline was seen in consumption of pirated music, which dropped by 32% on average across the EU, followed by consumption of pirated films (19.2% decrease) and consumption of pirated television content (7.7% decrease).
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.
The Executive Director of the EUIPO, Christian Archambeau, said: “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. 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 today 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.
The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) is an agency of the EU which manages the registration of the EU trade mark (EUTM) and the registered Community design (RCD), as well as carrying out cooperation activities with the national and regional intellectual property (IP) offices of the EU. The EUIPO also carries out research and activities to combat IP rights infringement.
