Spain Could Lose DVD & Blu-Ray Due to Piracy
March 31st, 2010
According to the head of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Michael Lynton, Spain could be the second country in the world, after South Korea, to be vetoed by the major DVD distribution companies in Hollywood.
“People in Spain are downloading movies in such quantity that it is about to stop being a viable market for us,” was his assumption on the current state of the Spanish movie market.
In an article titled “In Spain Piracy is part of the culture”, the LA Times says that the illegal downloading of movies in Spain have risen from 132 to 350 million between 2006 and 2008. The scathing article begins with “Picasso and bullfighting are pillars of the Spanish culture. Piracy is too.” Sony therefore might follow the example of Apple, which no longer sells movies or television shows through their digital store in Spain, while they still do in Britain, France and Germany.
The sales figures do substantiate Sony’s and the LA Times conclusions as between 2005 and 2009 the DVD market has lost nearly 60% of its revenue, with income falling from 430 million to 178 million euros. It is also estimated that over the last 5 years, 40% of the 30,000 jobs that were directly related to the DVD industry have disappeared, including a reduction in the number of DVD and video rental shops in Spain from 12,000 in 2003 to 3,000 today.
The arrival of the ‘Sinde Law’, a new strategy that enables the fast track closure of websites that allow the download of copyrighted files, is seen as a possible solution to this loss of revenue. “Traditionally, in Mediterranean countries, it has been difficult for people to understand that intangible things can be much more valuable than material things,” said Culture Minister, Ángeles González-Sinde, who is responsible for the implementation of the new law.
Gonzalez-Sinde also directs partial responsibility for the Spanish telecommunications companies, by implying to their users that high speed Internet access is accompanied by the right to acquire movies for free.
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