Ecuador leads Latin America in digital piracy

Ecuador tops all Latin America countries for the highest rate of digital piracy, according to the internet monitoring company Origin. The company’s survey found that 65% of Ecuadorian households with fixed internet service access pirated content.

According to Origin, the majority of piracy involves television programming, especially movies and sports programming.

In the ranking, Ecuador is followed by Colombia with a 58% piracy rate, Uruguay 53%, Peru 49%, Argentina 47%, Chile 45%, Mexico 34% and Brazil 31%.

This is not the first time Ecuador has ranked high in pirating intellectual content, Origin points out. The country consistently led Latin American countries in the 1980s and 1990s in the purchases of counterfeit VHS movies as it did in the 2000s with DVDs.

Origin’s study reports that pirated content is delivered by a variety of methods, including illegal websites, apps and add-ons, much of it using Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). “The trends reflect a diversification in illegal consumption habits, driven by easy access and the proliferation of connected devices,” the study says.

According to Origin, Latin America digital piracy costs legal content developers and delivery services an estimated $520 million annually. “Many of those accessing this content do not understand its impact on the livelihoods of millions of people worldwide,” Origin says. “In fact, a sizeable number of consumers are not even aware that what they are doing is illegal.”

One of the financial impacts of piracy in Ecuador is on the country’s professional football league. “It costs Liga Pro millions of dollars in lost television revenue each year and it affects game attendance and makes it difficult for our teams to cover their expenses,” says league President Ángel Loor. “I do not have exact numbers, but we believe 70% to 80% of viewers are not paying to watch the proprietary tv broadcasts.”

Loor adds: “Because of this, Liga Pro is one of the poorest leagues in South America, with several of our teams struggling to avoid bankruptcy.”

National Assemblywoman Inés Alarcón has introduced legislation to increase penalties for internet services providing pirated content. “The current laws are vague and do not adequately address the problem and must be strengthened,” she said. “Internet piracy, unfortunately, has been normalized in the country and we must not only go after the providers but the culture that accepts it.”

Like Loor, she cited the losses sustained by professional football teams.

Digital law expert Santiago Acurio doubts that new laws will effectively combat piracy. “Most of the providers of the content are out of the country and many use legal loopholes to maintain their services,” he says. “Maybe you can shut down one service but there are many others to take its place. As we have learned over the years, bad players on the internet consistently stay one step ahead of efforts to stop them.”

Acurio agrees with Alarcón that the cultural acceptance of piracy makes it difficult to combat. “It’s the viveza criolla attitude that has been prevalent Latin America for hundreds of years. It is simply the case of taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves, legal or otherwise.”

Alarcón recommends better public education about the dangers of viewing pirated content. “To download illegal sites, people often provide personal information that can be used to access their bank accounts and credit cards,” he says. “Besides this, malware is easily transmitted from these sources.”