Online Piracy To Cost 1.2 Million European Jobs By 2015

A study conducted by Parisian business research firm TERA Consultants, has warned that within the next five years, almost 250,000 jobs in Britain will be made redundant, if online piracy continues to affect the music, film and creative arts industries at its current pace.

The study, which was conducted on behalf of the International Chamber of Commerce, revealed that Britain will suffer the most as revenues from UK's creative industries account for almost 9 percent of the country's GDP.

Causing a ripple of fear across the European Union, the study, which has been endorsed by union organisations across Europe, reported that by 2015, almost 1.2 million EU jobs will be affected by online piracy as creative industries stand to lose almost £218bn in revenues, if law makers fail to curtail the problem.

Commenting on the results of the study, Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trade Unions Congress in the UK, said in a statement that “the growth of unauthorised downloading and streaming of copyrighted works was a major threat to the creative industries in terms of loss of employment and revenues.”

According to the study report, in 2008, revenues from music, TV, film and publishing industries in EU's 27 member countries, accounted for 4.5 percent of EU's total GDP for the year.