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Most online content consumed in Spain still illegal, says industry report
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 11 April 2014
Hey, Spanish internet users, what’s with all your piracy, hey? Do you realise that 84% of all the content you guys consumed online last year came from unlicensed sources? Naughty Spanish internet users.
That stat, in case you wondered, comes from a new report from a coalition of music, movie, publishing and gaming firms seemingly keen for the Spanish government to further step up its anti-piracy efforts. Which may or may not affect your opinion of the report’s findings, which also say that 28% of surveyed Spanish web users admitted to illegally downloading music on a regular basis, while over 40% access films in that way, though the music downloaders nick a lot more content overall.
In the early days of the music industry’s fight against online piracy Spanish copyright law proved pretty ineffectual, though hopes were raised by the passing of new legislation dubbed the Sinde Law in 2011, which in theory made the web-blocking of copyright infringing operations easier to achieve. The new law, although not without its critics, was welcomed by the rights industry, and the American government which had put the pressure on for Spain to sort out its copyright regime.
But this new report from the various content industries in Spain suggests that the impact of those anti-piracy measures has not been as substantial as was hoped. Antonio Guiasola of Spanish music industry group Promusicae wrote in his body’s recent annual report: “Between 2001 and today the money Spaniards spend annually buying recorded music has reduced by 80%. This reality is largely explained by the general perception existing in Spain that audio-visual content online should be free of charge”.
But Spain’s Ministry Of Culture have played down the bold stats published by the country’s content industries this week, saying their report was just a “rough opinion study commissioned by interested parties”. It also disputed the report’s main conclusion, which is that the web-blocking system put in place by the Sinde Law is not currently being run efficiently.
