Will piracy make us walk the plank?

Will piracy make us walk the plank?

We estimate the global value of counterfeiting and piracy to be close to US$2.8 trillion by 2022. The economic and social costs are projected at close to US$ 2 trillion for 2022.

Is piracy on the rise?

The International Chamber of Commerce needed Frontier to update a previous report on piracy to answer burning questions about whether and how piracy might have grown, to forecast how these trends might continue or change, and recommend what policymakers might do about it.

The size of the problem

We started with current estimates of international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods, augmented by forecasts of growth in import volumes and the ratio of customs seizures to real imports.

We carried out a similar exercise to illustrate how the size of domestic production and consumption of counterfeit and pirated goods may change over time. We used data on recent and forecast rates of growth in global trade and GDP, and projected growth in the rate of counterfeiting.

We measured the scale of counterfeiting and piracy and helped our client to understand the size of the problem, and the related social costs.

View from the crow’s nest

Our analysis shows that the scale of counterfeiting and piracy globally is large, that it has grown since previous estimates, and that this growth is expected to continue.

Some of our forecasts were that by 2022

  • The value of trade in counterfeit and pirated goods could reach $991 billion
  • The value of domestically-produced and consumed counterfeit and pirated goods could range from $524 to $959 billion
  • The value of digital piracy in movies, music and software could reach $384 to $856 billion

Net job losses will be between 4.2 to 5.4 million

Read the full report here