Digital piracy has reversed the downward trend of previous years and has closed 2022 with an increase of 3.3% in the EU, with streaming television broadcasts and sporting events taking center stage, which account for almost half of illegal content .
This is one of the main conclusions of a report on Los 27 published this Tuesday by the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), based in Alicante, which warns that illegal downloads of live events, such as the streaming broadcast of sports competitions is also on the rise. In fact, in Spain, the consumption of live sporting events represents a third of all pirated content.
Anime and manga also increased last year, as did television programs, series and movies, according to the study Online Copyright Infringement in the European Union, Films, Music, Publications, Software and TV, 2017-22 ( Online copyright infringement in the EU, films, music, publishing, software and television, 2017-22).
Measured through the number of monthly accesses to illegal content per Internet user, the change in trend in illegal downloads is due to the growth of television piracy, which increased by 15% to represent almost half (48%) of accesses totals to infringing sites in the EU, while other types of content are publications (28%), films (11%), software (7%) and music (6%).
Piracy of access to live sporting events has increased by 30% in 2021 and 2022, for example in France and Spain by more than a third (34%), and with peaks in April and September and October, as well as minimum values in June and July, as a possible reflection of the active periods and summer breaks in the main European football leagues.
Illegal access to publications, the second largest source of piracy after television, has also been on the rise since January 2021, with manga comics as the main genre in this category, followed at some distance by audiobooks and e-books. books or electronic books.
Despite a considerable decline during the first months of the pandemic, film piracy increased slightly in 2021 and 2022, with Hollywood blockbusters among the majority of films detected.
Piracy of software, such as games and mobile applications, has also increased slowly but at a lower rate. And although all categories saw an increase last year, piracy of music content decreased and remains at low levels.
On average, each EU internet user accessed websites offering pirated content about ten times a month by the end of 2022 but there is significant variation between member states, so the countries with the highest piracy rates are Estonia and Latvia, with almost 25 accesses per user per month, while the lowest are located in Germany, Italy and Poland, with around seven and a half accesses per user per month.
In the words of the executive director of the EUIPO, the Belgian Christian Archambeau, “the infringement of copyright in the digital age remains a very serious problem and constitutes a direct threat to the creative sectors in Europe.”
He continued that this new report reflects that “there is still much to do in the fight against piracy”, a phenomenon that “is constantly evolving in step with technology.”
According to the study, streaming has become the most popular method of accessing illicit television content since 58% of piracy in the EU occurs through this method and 32% through download.