Internet piracy costs Polish economy as much as 3 billion PLN a year

Every other Polish internet user aged 15-75 uses illegal online sources. According to an analysis of Deloitte, the total losses Polish economy incurs due to online piracy last year were over 3 billion PLN, while State Treasury losses were estimated at approximately 836 million PLN.

Despite growing accessibility of legal online content, internet users keep choosing illegal sources due to lower prices. The problem is also the fact that there has been no intensified legislative action regarding content protection. Due to that, illegal trade in films or ebooks became a very lucrative activity. Legal responsibility is avoided through building complex chains of linked services. Although it may seem the area is a threat only to the economy, being usually out of reach of control, more and more often it is also a source of problem related to malware or data security.

Over 12 million people who use illegal sources pay pirate services several or 10-odd PLN a month. The total amount of the expenses is approximately 900 million PLN a year. You may therefore assume that last year’s profits of pirate services offering illegal content were about 745 million PLN after taxes and transaction fees.

It is projected that without introducing appropriate legislative changes, the total value of content consumed from illegal sources between 2017 and 2024 will reach approximately 30.4 billion PLN. As specialists note, such amount could cover about 70 percent of public sector deficit for 2015 at one go.