Piracy has become a growing problem in Spain. According to this article in Variety, the Spanish entertainment industry has lost $6.5 billion in revenue in 2009. A poll of just under 6,000 Spaniards revealed that they were getting 84% of their movies and 95% of their music from illegal downloads. This epidemic, with a loss of $1.7 billion in taxes to piracy, is hitting the Spanish government hard. “According to the U.S. Congressional Intl. Anti-Piracy Caucus, unauthorized Spanish peer-to-peer downloads — 1.2 million in December — made Spain the world’s second-biggest P2P infringer by volume and per capita”. Spain’s Minister of Culture blames the lack of legal options available in Spain as well as a lack of listening and viewing devices.
This seems unlikely to be the sole contributing factor in the piracy prevalence in Spain. While America has many legal options for media downloading, piracy continues to be a problem in this country as well. The article claims that a poll revealed over 50% of Spaniards would be willing to pay for music and movies. However, only a small group of people were polled (less than 6,000) and the article provides no evidence as to what would motivate people in Spain to start paying for their media downloads. As the media industry evolves to adapt to the digital revolution, they will be hard pressed to get people to pay for what they’ve been getting for free for years.
link to article: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118020035.html?categoryid=19&cs=1&query=copyright
