Report: €60bn EU piracy losses
June 6, 2019
By Colin Mann
A new estimate from the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) puts the annual losses due to counterfeiting and piracy across 11 key economic sectors in the EU at up to £49 billion (€60bn) each year.
The updated analysis puts the overall losses at 7.4 per cent of all sales in the following sectors: cosmetics and personal care; clothing, footwear and accessories; sports goods; toys and games; jewellery and watches; handbags and luggage; recorded music; spirits and wine; pharmaceuticals; pesticides; and smartphones.
Given that legitimate manufacturers produce less than they would have had in the absence of counterfeiting, therefore employing fewer workers, the analysis, estimates that up to 468 000 jobs are directly lost in these sectors across the EU.
In the United Kingdom, annual losses due to counterfeiting and piracy are estimated at £5.98 billion, equivalent to 6.7 per cent of sales in the 11 sectors.
Taken as a whole, the total value of the lost sales in the UK is equivalent to GBP 92 per UK citizen per year, according to the analysis.
This is the second sector-wide assessment released by the EUIPO of the economic impact of counterfeiting and piracy in key economic sectors known to be vulnerable to intellectual property rights infringement.
The study estimates that, since the first analysis in 2018, the amount of lost sales has dropped at EU level in all but two of the sectors studied: clothing, accessories and footwear; and cosmetics and personal care.