Music piracy collapses in Italy with a 35% reduction in one year according to the latest data collected by the company Similarweb for IFPI and FIMI. The figures show a sharp decline in piracy in Italy with digital counterfeiting and the illegal distribution of online music via web and mobile dropping by 35% in the year from March 2018 and by over 50% compared to March 2017. In the first three months of 2019 the decline was around 10% (both from mobile and from desktop), confirming that all piracy segments have undergone a drastic reduction.
Stream ripping (which includes ripping from YouTube videos) fell by 41% in the year to March 2019, cyberlockers have seen a decrease of 19.4% compared to 2018 and bittorrent has even dropped by 52.6% compared to the previous year. This has been largely due to enforcement actions by Agcom (the Italian media regulation authority created in 1997) and from the criminal interventions carried out by the Guardia di Finanza over the years.
Enzo Mazza, CEO of FIMI said, “The key to this decline is a mix of effective contrast: good laws, built over time, and attractive business models.”
Sig Mazza considered that the combination of legal enforcement together with the availability of streaming as a valid alternative for consumers has contributed to the drastic drop in digital piracy. Add in the introduction of new features such as the New Music Friday charts highlighting new record releases and this has driven the move to legitimate music sources.
Luca Vespignani, FPM (Federation against Music Piracy) General Secretary commented, “This does not mean that the phenomenon has been defeated, because piracy has often identified innovative forms causing new impacts on the sector, but confirms that there was a targeted response that generated results.”
“Today a lot of the activity is focused on content protection, the control to counter illegal early exits or potential subtraction of contents in the supply chain: limited phenomena but with great economic impact on a product, thanks to the ease with which it can be propagated on the web” Vespignani concluded.
The percentage of piracy in Italy today is under 20%, compared to 35% in 2018 and even higher values only a few years ago.
