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Comment by logicalfails | Hacker News Reader

Why do individual European countries seem so obsessed with blocking Pirate sites? I assume the majority of IPs being pirated are likely from outside their own country, so the harm is negligible to the individual country's internal revenue streams, no?

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Media & Entertainment Services are overrepresented in a number of European countries like Italy, Spain, and France. Tier 1 Football/Soccer is a massive revenue generator, and one of the most pirated products globally.

> I assume the majority of IPs being pirated are likely from outside their own country

Ever heard of Ligue 1, home to teams like PSG, Olympique de Marseille, Olympique Lyonnais, and AS Monaco, and superstars like Mbappe, Dembélé, and Hakimi? French viewers also watch Spanish, Italian, Belgian, German, and English football/soccer as well.

In Czech Republic you are automatically assumed to be a pirate and thus paying fee from size of empty memory device (USB, SD, HDD, ..) by GB. So lot of people will justify piracy by "I have already paid for it".

We have this crap in Sweden also.

Seems like most EU countries have this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

Don't worry we also have it in France.

But it's not enough apparently.

Czechia also doesn't have a major entertainment revenue the same way France does. Ligue 1 generates around $3B a year in revenue, while Chance Liga is in the $10M-50M, and most Czech language media remains owned and distributed by state-owned CT, so rights have already been paid. And private sector CME/Nova (formerly owned by Ronald Lauder of "let's invade Greenland" fame and now owned by Petr Kellner's family) and Prima (owned by oligarch Ivan Zach) are used by their owners as political tools.

> Why do individual European countries seem so obsessed with blocking Pirate sites?

Ask the Disney Cooperation.

A facetious, but true, remark that describes the influence the large American media companies can have in combating piracy over here. Sir should recall the pressure the USA put on Sweden to close down the Pirate Bay; a Swedish site running in Sweden.

Not all European countries have media markets dominated by American conglomerates. European conglomerates gladly lobby as much as American ones.

In France's case, it's French conglomerates like Bolloré, Lagardère, Illiad, Dassault, and LVMH that dominate media IP ownership.

In Spain, it's Grupo Planeta and Burlesconi owned Fininvest that dominate IP ownership.

In Italy, it's Burlesconi owned Fininvest that dominates IP ownership.

France has a strong creative industry, which is why the government has always been very active in this domain.

Some other European are much less concerned about the issue.

It's also because telecom, media, and entertainment's represents a much larger component of France's economy compared to other EU states.

Spain and Italy are in a similar boat as France in that regard.

It's just used as a stepping stone toward more censorship and surveillance

Piracy does not pay taxes ;)

Or make "campaign contributions".

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