Pirate sites duped 2.4 million Poles into paying for illegal online content in 2012, according to Jaroslaw Mojsiejuk, president of the Association of TV Programme Distributors Sygnal.
Speaking to Gazeta Wyborcza, he added viewers invariably did not know the content was illegal, with the sites operating on an increasingly professional basis and – in the view of some industry experts – earning tens of millions of zlotys each year.
The most worrying statistic is arguably that for every Pole that views legal content online, two access illegal content.
Mojsiejuk dismissed a suggestion that viewers were turning to pirate sites because the cost of pay-per-view was too high in Poland. He also said that the number of pirate sites was growing, with 52 added to the total in Q3 this year alone.
Furthermore, few operators such sites end up in court and those that do are fined only small amounts. Sygnal has 19 members, among them Cyfrowy Polsat, nc+, TVN and HBO Polska.
