According to the results of a survey released in late June by the Italian anti-piracy organization FAPAV, the Italian economy lost 2.3 billion euros of turnover (revenue), with a loss of GDP of 902 million euros, lost tax revenues of 408 million euros and about 11,100 jobs lost or lack of employment opportunities.
The FAPAV/Ipsos Doxa study also highlighted the evolution of piracy in different content categories. Among adults, the most pirated content remains movies (28%), followed by series and fiction (23%), television programs (19%).
Surprisingly, live sports came in at just 14% in 2025, the first decrease since 2021, down by 1% compared with 2024.
36% of adults surveyed said that they had suffered malware attacks). 34% realized the risk of being identified by the Police, About a 33% and 25% respectively knew that piracy could result in the theft of personal and financial data (25%).
The report quoted the Italian regulator AGCOM, that 70% of adults consider Piracy Shield effective, AGCOM’s anti-piracy ticketing system, which notifies ISPs of pirate sites for blocking within 30 minutes, to be effective. Blocked sites have increased by more than a third in just one year and have now exceeded 100 thousand (source AGCOM).
Piracy Shield has been the subject of much criticism since its deployment in 2024, for indiscriminate blocking, false positives, and unfair impact on Internet service providers.
The results were released at an event in Rome, attended by government and media industry officials.
Why it matters
Italians remain ambivalent about the severity of piracy. If on the one hand, in fact, 60% of the Italian adult population considers piracy a serious behavior to be legally prosecuted (stable data compared to previous years), on the other hand among the pirates themselves only 48% recognize the seriousness of their actions, with 42% who consider them not serious at all. Among illegal IPTV users, 72% recognize that these practices cause damage to the economy and society. More than half of Italians (56%) are still aware of the link between audiovisual piracy and criminal circuits.
Further reading
Audiovisual piracy FAPAV/IPSOS Doxa study: Damage of 2.3 billion for the country system. Pirates fall, awareness and deterrence effect grow. Press release. FAPAV (Federation for the Protection of Autiovisual and Multimedia Content Industries)
