Piracy is choking Europe's cultural industries, according to a study entitled The contribution of the creative industries to the EU economy in terms of GDP and employment published this week by TERA Consultants and the Avignon Forum. The study used statistics from Eurostat to measure the contribution of the industries to the EU economy, and to see how this evolved between 2008 and 2011.

Despite the explosion of online video and music services, says EurActive France that reports the story, the sector has seen a downturn in growth and employment since 2008. The major economies like Germany and the United Kingdom are especially affected.

The total output of the cultural industries across the 27 EU member states in 2011 was worth €860 billion, accounting for 6.8% of the EU GDP, down 0.28% on 2008 figures.

The employment downturn was more severe. In 2011, the cultural industry employed around 14 million people - 6.5% of the total European workforce. This was a reduction of 2.65% from 2008.

The decline has been most severe in the European Union's five largest markets - Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain). Between 2008 and 2011, the economic output of the cultural sectors in these countries fell by 3.2%, and employment by 2%. These countries account for 72% of the total economic output, and 68% of employment in the European Union's cultural industries, according to EurActive France.

The study attributes this decline to the lack of effective anti-piracy regulation. The report stresses that there is "a correlation between the growth of creative industries and legislation that protects intellectual property." France, the UK and Spain passed anti-piracy legislations between 2009 and 2011, but the lack of enforcement has led to very limited results.

The Avignon Forum had already sounded the alarm in a previous report, concluding that the European Union's creative industries stood to lose between €166 billion and €240 billion and would be forced to cut between 600,000 and 1.2 million jobs by 2015.

Piracy is thought to have cost the five largest economies of the European Union around 20 billion euros and over 189,600 jobs between 2008 and 2011. TERA Consultants put the economic losses in these five markets' cultural industries between €27.1bn and €39.7bn over this period.

Story filed 17.10.14