23/03/2011

GVU (Gesellschaft zur Verfolgung von Urheberrechten Verletzungen e.V), a company that monitors the violation of intellectual property rights in Germany, has published its annual report on the state of piracy in 2010.

The association, which is funded by businesses and companies connected to the film and entertainment industry, presented the document which shows a trend towards the concentration of illegal download websites, but with a greater total volume of downloads. All this comes in the context of a professionalization of the illegal download market, which saw continual growth throughout the year.

There are two main forms of internet piracy: web portals that host films as downloadable archives, known as file-hosting, and those that offer the possibility of watching those same films via video streaming, with no need to download them. Although the total number of illegal portals fell in 2010, the number of available links increased considerably, especially in video streaming, where the number of links per page quadrupled compared to the previous year, while over the same period direct archive downloads went up only slightly.

The concentration of supply manifested itself in the disappearance of 15 portals, including 13 with downloadable archives and only two with streaming. In its study, GVU also warns about the growing sophistication of these illegal portals.

(Translated from Spanish)