European added value

• Author: Panella, Lauro
• Pages: 11-13

Challe nges facing sports e vent organisers in the digital environme nt

11

5.European added value

This s ection presentsthe annual value o f the mark et for o nline piracy of sports events i n the EU,

the amount of VATavoided, the damage that on-l ine piracy cau ses to legal broadcasters in

terms of lost r evenue, and job disruptio neach year in the sports event broadcast market.

The analysis is based on the available data. It is useful to point out that the data should be treated

with caut ion as companies o peratingin the sports and rela ted co ntent market u sually also op erate

in other audiovisualcontent s ourcemarkets(i.e. films, TV series, sports events, documentaries, etc.).

In addition,a considerables hare of illegal business m odels do not rely on subscription fees, but

rather theirrev enues come fr om spre ading m alware, phis hing activ ities, personal data theft, and

advertis ement. It is t hereforevery difficult to ca lculate these typesof 'second-order' cos ts and harms

to consumers, in monetary terms. As the illegal IPTV free streaming portalbusiness model

represen ts a non-negligibl e share of ill egal businesses, the estimated cost of pi racy may well

be underesti mated.

Combiningthe Eurostat data21on population, and the average share of people wh o regula rly watch

internet s treamed TV (live or cat ch-up) from TV broadcasters,22with the share of IPR infringers23and

the average monthly unauthorised IPTV cost per user by country,24it is pos sible to calculate the

average nu mber of househo lds that access il legal content throu gh an illegal subscripti on, the

total amount of il legalrevenues generated by illegal subscriptions to streaming platforms

and the total amount of VATavoided.

Based o n data for 2018and 2019, Figu re 1 shows that in 20197.6 millionsubscriptions were made

to ille gal br oadca stin g plat forms in t he EU . These subs criptions gener ated around €522 millionin

ill icit revenues and €113.5 millionin avoided VAT.

Comb ining the se estimatio ns with data 25on the monthly average revenue for a legal subscription

in each Member State (by technological means of broadcasting), it is poss ible to estimate the to tal

amount of money lost by legal economic operators. This, with the €113.5 millionin a voi ded

VAT, could be considered t he economic added valueof a coordinated EU response to the issue of

onlin e piracy in sportseve nt br oa dcas ting .

21Eurostat database: Populationon 1 January .

22Eurostat database: Individuals – internet activities.

23EUIP O – EUROPOL, Intellectual Property Crime Threat Assessment 2019, p. 28.

24EUIP O, Il legal I PTV in the European Union, 2019, p. 55.

25Ampe re A nalysi s, OBS/ Amper e A nalysi s (20 19 ), Yearbook 2019, European Audiovisual Observatory.