Internet piracy taking big toll on jobs

Atrists suffer

The bulk of illegal downloading targets music, television and video sites, with consumers using "peer-to-peer" formats to download songs and video clips onto their laptops and home computers from websites without paying a fee.

In that respect it has a disproportionate impact on the creative industries, with musicians, actors and artists standing to lose the most from unfettered downloading, experts say.

Agnete Haaland, the president of the International Actors' Federation, believes consumers need to be made more aware of the damaging economic and social impact of their illegal activity.

"We should change the word piracy," she told reporters at the unveiling of the report on Wednesday.

"To me, piracy is something adventurous, it makes you think about Johnny Depp. We all want to be a bit like Johnny Depp. But we're talking about a criminal act. We're talking about making it impossible to make a living from what you do," she said.

Haaland, whose group supported the study, said one of the best ways to reverse the situation would be stricter EU legislation to enforce existing laws against piracy.

"The European Union should really lead the way and fill the important gap in the body of laws," she said.

"Consumers have to understand that there will be nothing to consume if it's impossible to make money making the content."

Marielle Gallo, a member of the European Parliament who is pushing for tighter laws on intellectual property, said the report showed how much damage could be done to industry.

But she said it would be tough to secure passage of stricter rules as several parliamentary groups are strongly opposed.