Dutch Film Creators Accused Government of Damaging Industry

Moviemakers accused the Dutch government of tolerating and even encouraging online piracy for a long time. Now the Dutch filmmakers' association is claiming damages they've suffered over the past decade, which could amount to hundreds of millions of euros.

Image Credit: Wikipedia & Zwolle Bioscoop De

Online piracy, which affects producers of movies and TV-shows, is very widespread in the Netherlands, compared to many other countries: about 30% of the population download and stream illegal copies of copyrighted content for free. This is because the Netherlands has traditionally been a safe haven for pirates – the matter is that pirating movies was not illegal there until 2014, when the European Court of Justice criticized the tolerant stance. After that, the local government quickly outlawed illegal file-sharing. Nevertheless, the local piracy rates still remain high.

As a result, the Dutch filmmakers’ association claimed the government was responsible for damages and had to compensate the piracy losses suffered. The association submitted the claim to the Ministry of Security and Justice earlier in 2015. It was denied, but the content creators intend to press on, insisting that their demands are legitimate and the government has to compensate them for a decade of piracy damages. The filmmakers explain that despite the new ban on illegal downloading, almost nothing has changed – there haven’t been any prosecutions of downloaders. In other words, it looks like the Dutch government has actually encouraged the public to pirate, which costs the industry millions in lost revenues.

In respond, critics often argue that the entertainment industry itself can do more to curb piracy – for example, make sure that their content is widely available to the public for a decent price. The filmmakers agree that improvements can be made on the supply side, but they should be combined with stronger enforcement. On the other hand, the local government has already decided that consumers should not be prosecuted.

The association is currently calling for an accurate estimate of the damages the entertainment industry has suffered. They are hard to estimate, but the moviemakers point to a recent study, which estimated the losses at 78 million euros annually.

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Thanks to TorrentFreak for article.

Posted by:  SaM