The Spanish-speaking Internet users access 15% more illegal pages of editorial content than the rest of the users in the world, according to the report presented this Wednesday by the new Observatory for the Sustainability of Written Culture, which also warns that the piracy of Books or magazines grew 59.1% in the last year.
The document reflects that the digital theft of editorial content has grown by 59.1% since 2021 (regarding music pages or audiovisual content) and it is Spanish-speaking Internet users (the 600 million around the world) who access 15% more these illegal editorial content compared to other users from other countries.
This theft is motivated by a “cultural factor”, not for economic reasons, since the countries with the highest index of cultural development, and the highest GDP register more theft of editorial content.
The behavioral factors that explain this theft are that users “do not know” how to identify that the content they are acquiring is illegal and, on the other hand, they know that content theft is wrong, but they do it for a practical matter.
For the elaboration of this Observatory, the results and conclusions of two studies were used, “Comparative analysis of the situation of copyright by secondary uses of editorial content in Europe”, directed by Julio Cerviño, professor at the Carlos III University ; and “Online piracy of editorial content in Spanish”, directed by Héctor Jiménez, executive director of Qbo Investigation and Strategy.
Both studies also show that the Spanish publishing sector suffers from a situation of “competitive disadvantage” compared to Europe in terms of copyright generated by reuse.
This situation is added to the growth in the theft of editorial content in Spanish, especially now with messaging services, such as WhatsAppwhich has become the “main channel for illegal access to editorial works“.
Another of the points that the Observatory analyzes are the rates charged by Spanish authors, and here they also come out disadvantaged compared to their colleagues from the rest of the Europe: the average rate in Spain for the reuse of editorial content is 38.25% lower than the European average (weighted at purchasing power parity).
The best-paid authors for the reuse of their content are the Czechs, with €17.6, followed by the Swedes with €7.31 and the Norwegians with €5.86. The worst is Italy, with €0.06, an “outlier”.
Among the solutions that this Observatory offers to remunerate authors for the reuse of their editorial content is that the public Administration be the one to lead this process, as well as educate and train in good practices on intellectual property, according to the writer. Spanish Manuel Vilas and the general director of the Anaya publishing house, Marta Martínez.