Audiovisual industry in Portugal loses 200 million/year

Yes, content piracy is still a huge reality. Despite the evolution of services, with many having moved to subscription models, there are those who continue to have copied content or consume illegal content.

According to recent data, the audiovisual industry in Portugal loses at least 200ME per year with piracy.

In times of pandemic, there were more than 55 million visits to illegal ‘websites'”
According to the general director of Fevipe – Portuguese Association for the Defense of Audiovisual Works, Paulo Santos, the audiovisual industry in Portugal “loses at least 200 million euros” a year to piracy.

The official considers that the estimated numbers are below, given that the State loses VAT and IRC on royalties from that amount.

In an interview with Lusa, Paulo Santos, who is also president of MAPiNET, cites a work by the British consultant MUSO, which shows that in Portugal, last year, “there were over 55 million visits to illegal ‘websites'”, in the confinement sequence.

Piracy also uses IPTV and many believe they are “acquiring a perfectly legitimate service, but the truth is that we have acquired through authentic organizations (…) a box” that allows “access to two thousand channels from all televisions”, exemplifies.

With that, “we have access to videos, movies, everything and this is piracy and this type of piracy has been harming due to the strong massification that our society has at this moment, it has been strongly harming the cable operators themselves”, which also includes Sport TV and Eleven, “because less subscriptions are made”.

Paulo Santos says that we are talking about “more than 400 thousand users of this type of piracy” and, once again, these numbers are low. The director-general of Fevipe stresses that it is possible to subscribe to a film channel for seven euros a month and see a “catelline of films and series”, so “today it is no longer a question of price, it is already democratized”. Contrary to popular belief, he emphasizes, “the crime of piracy has many victims”.

For example, “newspaper piracy has many victims, journalists will stop writing, more and more we will also stop having quality in the information itself because you have to bet on cheap things, then we fall into what happens in the social networks, the ‘fakes news'”, among others.

Films and series are the most pirated content in Portugal, followed by football, according to the official.

This type of piracy involves various crimes, from illegitimate access to computer systems – in this case having access to a cable operator to access your signal to give to others – such as the crime of usurpation, as well as tax fraud, money laundering , between others.

In addition, having a ‘box’ to illegally access channels can also be a gateway to computer attacks, he says, from ‘phishing’, ‘spyware’, among others. BBC Edition