Fewer pirates, but the bill remains steep: 2.3 billion lost to illegal activity

Audiovisual piracy is on the decline. But not enough for the cinema, TV, streaming platforms and the sports industry to breathe a sigh of relief. Piracy is therefore losing ground, awareness campaigns are making an impact, and the law is beginning to instil fear and act as a deterrent. The cost, however, remains steep: €2.3 billion in revenue lost to the national economy, €902 million in GDP evaporated, €408 million in lost tax revenue and around 11,100 jobs lost or never created.

This is the picture that emerges from the survey conducted by Fapav (Federation for the Protection of the Audiovisual and Multimedia Content Industries) and Ipsos Doxa on audiovisual piracy in Italia in 2025. It will be presented today as part of the event ‘The State of the Fight Against Piracy’, marking two years since the new anti-piracy law came into force and coinciding with the extension of the Piracy Shield (a platform designed to facilitate rapid blocking, within a maximum of half an hour of a report of the infringement) to films, programmes and TV series from September 2025.

The headline could be this: things are improving, but they’re still not great. In 2025, 37 per cent of the population aged 10 and over committed at least one act of piracy, amounting to around 20 million Italians. This figure is down by 4% compared with 2024 and by 7% compared with 2023: in two years, over a million people have stopped pirating.

The most encouraging sign comes from the very youngest age group. Among children aged between 10 and 14, the incidence stands at 37 per cent – the lowest figure yet: it was 40 per cent in 2024 and 45 per cent in 2023. Among adults, too, the figure stands at 37 per cent, with an estimated 290.6 million acts of piracy, down 9 per cent on 2023. Films remain the most affected content, pirated by 28 per cent of adults. These are followed by series and dramas at 23 per cent, TV programmes at 19 per cent and live sport at 14 per cent.

Behind this slowdown, however, lies a less reassuring picture. For films and drama series, the direct economic loss has fallen to 450 million, compared with 530 million in 2024 and 550 in 2023. Lost viewings amount to 56.9 million, 7 per cent less than in 2024. However, the potential loss, calculated on the basis of legal streaming services maintained throughout the year, still stands at 734 million. For live sport, the trend is in the opposite direction: 13 million lost viewings, an 8 per cent increase year-on-year and a 14 per cent increase compared with 2023; the economic loss amounts to 419 million, up 19% on 2024 and up 47% over two years.