Film piracy up in Germany
A study jointly commissioned by the German Federal Film (FFA) the German music industry shows that piracy increased alarmingly in 2002. The survey focused on private copying of films onto CDs and DVDs and Internet downloading and was carried out by market researcher, GFK, (GFK) who questioned 10,000 people in Nuremburg.
The survey reveals that technical innovations now permit a vast slice of the German public to perform these illicit operations in the comfort of their own homes and that the overwhelming majority of “criminals” are aged between 10 and 29 – the audience that traditionally spends the most money in cinemas.
In 2002, 15.5 million films were downloaded from the Internet illegally, with 2.4 million people accessing an average of 6 films each. 56 per cent of illegal downloads were onto CDs and 8 per cent onto DVDs. 53 per cent of those who answered the questionnaire admitted to downloading films prior to their going on sale and 23 per cent admitted to downloading titles prior to their theatrical release.
The survey is scheduled to be published shortly on the German Federal Film Board’s official web site.
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