One in four Dutch people illegally download, says report

Just 24% of Dutch people have downloaded films, TV series, music or games illegally in the past year, a decrease from prior years

This is the finding of a report from Telecompaper, a market research company.

In 2013, 41% of people downloaded regularly, with men downloading a lot more than women, according to the company.

The growth of services such as Netflix and Spotify, combined with organisations increasingly tackling illegal uploading, seems to have contributed to the fall in downloading.

Telecompaper said that 12% of those surveyed indicated that they were downloading less because it’s now easier to obtain paid content, while 8% said it was because content was harder to find.

Around 4% of respondents said they are now downloading less because their internet provider has blocked certain download sites. In November 2015, just 1% stated this as a reason.

In May last year, Netherlands-based anti-piracy organisation BREIN reached a €10,000 ($10,983) settlement with a provider of illegal internet protocol televisions.

Later in the year, the Court of The Hague ordered Dutch internet service providers Ziggo and XS4ALL Internet to block file-sharing website The Pirate Bay. Brein had brought the proceedings.

In response to the Telecompaper report, Tim Kuik, BREIN director, explained that this is probably the beginning of a trend, as Ziggo and XS4ALL have only been blocking the site since the end of September last year and the other major providers since the end of January this year.

He expects the percentage of illegal downloaders to drop further.

“After the experience with the previous block between 2012 and 2014 when Dutch visits to The Pirate Bay dropped by more than 80%, this is again a clear indication that blocking access by internet access providers has a considerable influence on visitor numbers,” said Kuik.