There was a time during the credit crunch of
2008-2012 that living in Spain was the hotbed of illegal downloads in Europe. From music
and films to unlicensed software, Spaniards who found themselves strapped for
cash would use internet services to get their hands on the content they
couldn’t afford or just didn’t want to pay for.
Spain wasn’t
the only country this trend hit, but it certainly became the leader. Things
have changed now, however. As the Spanish economy has picked up, and there are
affordable streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix opening their doors,
the amount of illegal content downloaded in Spain has tanked.
A survey of
over 4,000 Spanish internet users from consultancy firm Gfk shows that piracy
has hit a ten-year low in the country. Around half of the people surveyed
admitted to still illegally downloading content, saying that they feel they can
get anything they want online for free because they pay for their internet
connection.
A similar
amount of people did say that they would pay for the content if it was cheaper.
The survey
suggested that content piracy accounted for around €1.8 billion in lost
earnings during 2016. If all the content that was illegally downloaded was paid
for legally, then it would have supported 21,000 jobs in Spain alone according
to the consultancy firm.
An area of
the Spanish economy that is certainly generating jobs is the automotive industry, which kicked off the year to a great start with 7.9% more cars sold
in Spain for the first quarter of 2017, compared to the first quarter of 2016.
Car sales –
much like property sales – are an accurate sign of how the economy is
performing. An increase in sales for cars or homes is always a cause for
celebration.
The Spanish
Association of Automobiles and Trucks (ANFAC) calculated some 307,911 cars were
sold during the first quarter of 2017 in Spain. Malaga topped the charts in
Andalucía, with 10,270 new cars sold, followed by Seville with 9,778 cars sold.
