Copyright, internet is not the enemy. Thoughts on the “Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU” hidden report

Abstract

Since the dawning days of the popularization of the internet, it has been regarded as an enemy for copyright. Cultural industries have claimed for the losses derived from rampant piracy. That is their side of the coin. In 2013, the European Commission tendered a study that run over 28.000 polls and had an extension of over 300 pages to deepen into this subject: “Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU”. It was finally handled by 2015. However, the report never saw the light of day. Why? In July 2017, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Julia Reda filed an application for accessing public documentation. The results of the report were surprising, stating that piracy in some cases was not hurting revenues, while in others, it was in fact enhancing the sale of copyrighted content by legal channels. Was it an unexpected result for the European Commission? Now, in 2019, with the perspective of time, it is easy to see that internet and digital distribution was not a threat, but an opportunity. Profits in all industries show wealthy increasements coming from digital sources. Steady growth figures for online markets of music, audiovisual and videogaming industry do not match the old discourse anymore. This work approaches to what this report said, why it was not made public, and how figures from 2019 prove that, perhaps, it was ahead of its time, and internet was not an enemy to fear all along.