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In Spain, Internet piracy is part of the culture

Los Angeles, US

Source : Culture Europe International (http://www.culture-europe-international.org)
01 49 40 72 46 - contact@culture-europe-international.org
2, rue de la Liberté, 93526 Saint-Denis cedex 02

Rubrique : Revue de presse

du 03/04/2010 00:00 au 03/08/2010 00:00
Paris France



Texte : By FIONA MCANN
The Los Angeles Times
US
March 30th, 2010
(extracts)

Picasso and bullfighting are cultural touchstones in Spain. Now add Internet piracy.

The unauthorized downloading and streaming of movies and television shows from the Web is a growing problem for the entertainment industry around the world. In a few key countries such as Spain, however, it has become an epidemic that is forcing movie studios to consider no longer selling DVDs in the country.(...)

It's no surprise why average Spaniards think it's not a big deal: Unlike in the U.S., France and, under proposed legislation, Britain, piracy isn't against the law in Spain unless it's done for profit. The country's minister of culture, a former filmmaker who is backing a bill that would make it easier to shut off access to websites that facilitate piracy, blames the problem on deep-rooted cultural attitudes.

"Traditionally in Mediterranean countries, it's hard for people to understand that immaterial things can be worth as much as material things," said Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde.

Piracy is reshaping the movie business in Spain, much as it has done to the music business around the world. In 2003, there were 12,000 video stores in the country. By the end of 2008, there were 3,000.

Legitimate digital distribution isn't filling the gap. Apple Inc.'s iTunes, the world's biggest digital-media store, doesn't sell movies or television shows in Spain, as it does in Britain, France and Germany.

Between 2006 and 2008, illegal movie downloads in Spain went from 132 million a year to 350 million, according to research firm Media-Control GfK, at the same time that the number of DVDs sold or rented fell by 30%. Some studios now see Spain as a lost market.(...)

If this were an isolated example, Hollywood could handle the blow. But Spain is on the verge of becoming the second country in which piracy has ravaged what was once a robust business. In 2008, the last of the major studios shut down their operations in South Korea for the same reason.(...)

Spanish box-office receipts were up slightly in 2009, reflecting a worldwide trend of people going to movie theaters amid the recession as a low-cost social experience. But about half the profit for a typical motion picture comes from DVD sales and rentals.

"The same box-office dollar generates anywhere from three to 10 times as much home-video spending in Germany or the U.K. as in Spain," said Joe Drake, motion picture group president for Lions Gate Entertainment. "Piracy is a massive piece of that difference."(...)

The problem may be exacerbated by Spain's telecom companies, said Gonzalez-Sinde, the culture minister. She said that they have subtly encouraged the notion that paying for high-speed Internet access brings a cornucopia of movies free, an idea that appears to resonate with the public.

"People pay 30 to 40 euros per month [for Internet service] to download up to 100 movies per month," said Madrid resident Andres Gesteira, 28. "It's not just to check e-mail."

Movie studios have responded by demanding stricter enforcement. Their new ideal is a "three strikes" law adopted in France last year that potentially cuts off Internet access for those caught pirating movies or music three times. A similar law is being debated in the British Parliament.

Recently, Spain's Cabinet approved a bill that lets judges quickly ban access to websites that offer pirated media. The measure is awaiting approval by the parliament.(...)

Opponents have rallied around an unpopular tax on blank DVDs and CDs that's meant to cover the cost of making copies of movies and music for friends.

"Many people think that the tax makes it more legitimate to download copyrighted material," said David Gomez, an Internet liberties activist in Spain.(...)

Piracy in Spain, by this view, may be more akin to a disease, one that Hollywood must hope to contain before it spreads.

"Generally speaking, piracy is a cultural issue, and stopping it may be akin to how long it took drinking and driving to become socially unacceptable," said Bob Pisano, interim chief executive of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, who has been to Spain four times in the last year and a half to address the issue.

"We need to get a handle on it if we don't want to end up like the music industry, where their business model didn't keep pace with the realities of the new marketplace."

Full version

Date de publication : 30/03/2010


Période traitée : 2010-03-30
Mots-clés : Spanish film industry, Hollywood, internet piracy, illegal downloading, Spanish box-office,
Inséré le : 03/04/2010 22:37