For years, it had been claimed that online piracy costs the U.S. economy upwards of $250 billion and 750,000 jobs per year. However in 2010, a report released by the Government Accountability Office announced that “those numbers cannot be substantiated.”
Background Check Blog tried to find out what numbers can actually be substantiated with the below infographic which takes a closer look at the true cost of piracy.
Some of the stats are a bit dated, but here are a few interesting take-aways:
- In 2008, piracy accounted for 41 percent of installed PC Software.
- In 2009, the International Federation of thePhonographic Industry spent $120M fighting online piracy
- There’s gender equality in piracy; women are just as likely as men to pirate.
- 46 percent of U.S. adults and 70 percent of 18-29 year olds have bought pirated DVDs, copied files from family or friends, or downloaded music, movies or other media content for free.
