EU Buried Study That Found No Impact From Piracy On Entertainment Industry

The European Commission, part of the European Union, paid for a study in 2014 on the impact of piracy on the sales of copyrighted content and chose not to publish the document after finding there was little evidence to suggest a negative impact stemming from pirated material.

The 300-page report was highlighted by Julia Reda, a German politician and member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany. Reda is also the only member of the Pirate Party represented in the EU Parliament.

According to Reda, the European Commission paid Dutch consulting firm Ecorys 360,000 euros, or about $428,000, to conduct research into the effects piracy has had on sales of copyrighted material. The report was completed in May 2015 but the EU chose not to publish the findings.

That decision was made because the study didn’t produce the results the Commission was hoping for, according to Reda. The study concludes that there isn’t much evidence to support the idea that piracy has an effect on the sales of copyrighted material.

“In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements,” the report states. “That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect.”

While the impacts of piracy may be less than expected by the Commission, there are still victims of the act. The study suggested the film industry appeared to have been adversely affected by the prevalence of piracy, finding a 40 percent displacement rate for top films—meaning for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films were watched through legal channels.

On the other side of the equation, the study actually found one form of entertainment that seemed to have benefited from piracy. The illegal downloading of video games tended to result in a spike in legal sales, suggesting a positive impact between piracy and overall sales.

On the contrary, in the case of video games, the study found the opposite link, indicating a positive influence of illegal game downloads on legal sales.

Reda suggested the report should have been published to help inform discussions about copyright policies, especially since the report appeared to question the general consensus of the entertainment industry that piracy has negatively affects sales and consumption of its products.

The decision to not publish the full report didn’t stop EU from making use of its findings when it was convenient. According to Reda, the Commission published figures from the study in a 2016 academic article highlighting the negative impact of piracy on blockbuster films while negating to include information that showed a lack of evidence to suggest piracy is harmful to other industries

The full report could have proved useful and informative as the EU begins to pursue copyright reform. Early proposals surrounding the conversation have already been criticized by a number of organizations and tech firms including Mozilla—which called the proposal “dysfunctional” —and the Open Rights Group, a United Kingdom-based organization that works to preserve digital rights.