47% of people in Slovakia use at least one paid platform to watch movies, series or music, according to a survey conducted on behalf of the Association of Television Broadcasters of Slovakia (ATVS).
The number of people who pay for on demand services in Slovakia is also increasing, in line with the launch of streaming services by local commercial channels. 47% are now subscribing to such a service.
The survey, by CreditCall was conducted in the form of telephone interviews with a sample of 1,000 respondents.
However, piracy of audiovisual content still remains a major problem in Slovakia, with almost 20% of the population admitting to it. As many as 10.63% of respondents said in the survey that they access both legal and online content from the internet; 9% of respondents confirmed that they obtain movies, series or music exclusively from pirated sources.
” We assume that in reality this number can be even higher, because people do not always admit to these activities,” explains Lucia Tandlich, director of the legal department of the Markíza group, which runs six TV channels including TV Markíza, Doma, Dajto and Markíza KRIMI . “The availability of pirated content on the Internet remains a problem. Not only does it significantly make the work of domestic creators, who already have to struggle with a lack of funding when creating, but this deliberate violation of copyright also makes services more expensive for paying viewers.”
Of the 56.17% of Slovaks who, according to the survey, watch or download content from online platforms, 48.39% of them do so at least once a week and 23.21% even daily. So if it happens illegally, the companies that have purchased licenses for the content or produce it lose huge sums of money.
New legislation, designed to prevent the spread of illegal content over the internet, has been included in the Slovak copyright act, which also incorporates the relevant European directive on copyright.
“Public education remains important. Pirated content should be treated in the same way as stowaways on public transport are treated. It is important to realise that with this approach you can ultimately harm yourself by not being able to view similar content next time, because, for example, it will not be created at all. Fortunately, it seems that more and more viewers are aware of this,” concludes Tandlich, adding that more than 42% of people in the survey said that it is rather important or very important for them to support creators and the creative industry using legal content monitoring services.
