The recent Study of Piracy and Habits of Consumption of Digital Content found that Spanish football lost €509M in '14 through 139 million games that were pirated in 1.8 million homes viewing content illegally, according to the EFE. This report, presented by the Coalition of Creators and Content Industries in collaboration with the Spanish Football League (LFP), "compiles for the first time data related to the piracy of football broadcasts." LFP Strategic Projects Dir Ignacio Martínez said, "Football is among the most consumed content and we are the most global industry. This is why we need to protect this as a product." He called the sector a major industry that "represents .8%" of Spain's GDP. He added, "In other countries there are many ways to protect this and we have no legal protection. One of every five Internet users consumes pirated football, a practice that is a huge scourge that we have to resolve." Digital piracy broke records in Spain, where 87.94% of digital content consumed in '14 was pirated, compared to 84% the previous year. The study found that only 40% of fans' consumption of content was legal, "with the percentage of consumers illegally accessing content" jumping from 51% in '13 to 58% in '14. Another "revealing fact in the study is that more than 71% of sites with illegal content are financed by advertising, 70% of which comes from betting and online gaming sites" (EFE, 3/10).
