A recent European study highlights the sharp drop in illegal downloading in Europe. A trend largely boosted by the success of legal streaming platforms.
SVOD’s offers may well arouse some criticism from historical broadcasters, and in particular defenders of the sacrosanct chronology of French media, they also carry their share of advantages. According to a recent study carried out by the European Union between 2017 and 2020, their democratization would have led to a drastic drop in the number of illegal downloads, all media combined.
Very popular in the 2000s, illegal downloading platforms dedicated to music have now fallen into disuse. The emergence, then the development of Deezer, Spotify or more recently YouTube Music, now gives us the opportunity to access a large catalog, available anytime and (almost) anywhere. Ease of access and affordable prices, which have largely contributed to the end of piracy. A few years later, it is the turn of series and cinema to take the same path, thanks to the arrival on the market of the giant Netflix, then of Amazon Prime video and of
Disney +
.
In its study, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) thus indicates a almost 34% drop in illegal downloads for the year 2020, a record since 2017, when the trend was already downward. We note, however, that this decline is not the same depending on the media. Thus, music recorded a drop in piracy by 41%, cinema by 51%, and series by 27%. This heterogeneity is mainly explained by the fragmentation of offers, but also by the multiplication of original series, at a time when few consumers are subscribed to all existing services.
The series remain the queens of piracy
Having become the multimedia consumption format par excellence, series therefore remain the privileged target of illegal downloading. However, Europeans are good students, with “only” 5.9 connections per month to registered pirate sites out of a total of 133 billion connections, says the study. A figure slightly below the French ranking, which peaks at 6.8 times per month.
Faced with an exhaustive and not very restrictive legal offer, Internet users therefore seem ready to put their hand in the wallet rather than risking themselves to consult fraudulent content. It remains to be seen whether the multiplication of platforms and the constant increase in subscription prices will continue to make everyone agree, or if, on the contrary, it will lead to the return of the practice.
