Hollywood consider Ending DVD Sales to Spain

A newspaper in the USA has reported how Hollywood is considering removing DVD’s from sale in Spain because of the high number of pirated copies of films which are being downloaded over here.

The Los Angeles Times reported how digital piracy is ‘part of the Spanish culture’ is now such a problem that the country is the second in the world where DVD sales are no longer profitable. The first was South Korea where piracy became such a problem that the studios decided to stop selling DVD’s there altogether.

The paper reported how downloading films from the internet is not considered a crime in Spain, provided that it is not done for profit.

In 2003 there were as many as 12,000 DVD rental shops in Spain, however just 5 years later less than 3’00 remained in business.

An industry experts estimates that in the last 4 years, the number of films downloaded illegally in Spain rose dramatically from 132 million a year to 350 million, and at the same time DVD sales plummeted by over 30%.

The Spanish Minister for Culture, Algeles González-Sinde has said how the new Sustainable Economy Law would make it easier to shut down the web sites which link to such illegal downloads. She agrees that Spanish culture is a large part of the problem, and also that some of the blame has to lie with the Internet Service Providers who ‘subtlety sell broadband connections with the right to download films’.