The percentage of consumers who accessed illegal media services as of March 2023 was highest in Sweden at 25%, followed by 22% in Norway, 20% in Denmark and 17% in Finland, according to an analysis of illegal downloading and streaming of film and TV programming in the Nordic region by Medivision, the Swedish consulting firm.
About 1,150,000 households in the region admit that they subscribe to illegal IPTV services; 40% of which are in Sweden. Â Far behind but next was Norway at 11%.
The younger age groups had the highest piracy rates – about half of those aged 15-24 – compared with older groups. Â It was 10% or less for the 56-64 age group.
Nearly tripled in Finland
An excerpt of the research focusing on Finland was released online by a Finnish anti-piracy organization.
According to Finland’s Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (TTVK), the number of households reported by Mediavision as using unauthorized content had almost tripled from 6% in 2018, to 2023’s 17%, reaching 190,000 households.
According to Cineuropa, which interviewd a TTVK executive, the average monthly spend on illegal IPTV is €22 per month, which is almost as much as the spend in households with traditional pay TV (€25 per month).  Cineuropa reasoned that consumers are willing to pay pirates for a wider range of programming than is available through legal channels.
Main drivers for Finnish consumers were access to streaming services (37% of respondents), live sports (24%), non-sports pay TV channels (18%) and foreign channels (17%).
Further supporting the premise that local consumers want programming that is locally relevant to them, about 40% of the illegally obtained programming is Finnish, and a further 20% is from other Nordic countries. Â The other ~40% was in English and other languages.
Methodology
During March 2023, Mediavision conducted online interviews with respondents 17-74 years of age, including 1,400 Danes, 1,200 Finns, 1,100 Norwegians and 1,000 Swedes.
Devices covered in this survey included illegal downloads and streaming to computers and mobile devices. Â Statistical confidence interval was 95%
Further reading
Insight: Nordic Piracy. Report. Spring 2023 (May). Mediavision AB (Sweden)
Piracy is on the rise in all Nordic countries, according to Mediavision. Article. July 11, 2023. by Davide Abbatescianni. Cineuropa.
Mediavision’s research: the number of people engaged in AV piracy has increased sharply. Article. May 23, 2023. TTVK (Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre) Finland (Auto-translated from Finnish to English by Googl Translate)
Why it matters
The report runs against conventional wisdom (and against other reports published by European sources) that contend piracy is going down. Â Also, maybe unexpectedly , by most measures, piracy was much lower during the pandemic years that it is in 2023.
