Online piracy impacts the workforce through the whole entertainment industry in a massive and direct way. This results in companies losing revenue, employees losing earnings and the government losing taxes creating a domino effect of people losing their jobs. 

The cost of online piracy

Pirated videos viewed over 200bn times in 2018

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This costs US almost $30bn a year, according to Chamber of Commerce

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Piracy results in up to 560,000 industry job losses

Data: ibc.org

More than half a million people lose jobs a Year on average as a result of online piracy. Just in the music industry an estimated 71,060 jobs are lost based on music piracy, which costs $12.5 billion per year on average. 

Same as the music industry, the film industry also suffers due to piracy. US-produced films on average receive 26.6 billion illegal views. This makes the production lose $12.4 to $40 billion annually and distribution loses $900 million and $2.1 billion annually. Music theft leads to the loss of 71,060 jobs to the U.S. economy.

The digital TV sector loses billions in piracy as well. The sector loses $14.7 billion to $35.7 billion for production and between £1.3 billion and $3.1 billion for distribution.

As we said in the beginning, piracy has a domino effect. On average between 230,000 and 560,000 job losses per year occur due to this reason in the US. The US also saw its GDP drop between $47.5 billion and $115.3 billion in 2018 in relation to digital piracy. 

“The U.S. federal, state and local governments lose a minimum of $422 million in tax revenues annually due to piracy$291 million of that $422 million represents lost personal income taxes while $131 million is lost corporate income and production taxes.” (riaa.com)

New jobs created in the industry

Online piracy has created a new industry. The online anti-piracy industry now tackles piracy of all mediums. The industry consists of – 

• Most media firms have internal anti-piracy teams. 
• External online anti-piracy firms such as Onsist provide service to companies who need protection of their digital properties.
• Specialized anti-piracy outfits.
• Takedown departments.
• Copyright enforcement units.