Although the number of Latvian users of illegal content download and streaming sites – torrents – on the Internet returned to the level of February after a 22% increase in April in April, the fact that the number of views of torrent sites and the average time spent by one user on the site almost doubled is worrying. , commenting on the survey and research conducted by the international Internet research and technology company “Gemius” “Audit of the most popular torrent download sites in Latvia and audience research”.
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An audit of Latvia’s most popular torrent download sites, published on the website of the Ministry of Culture, found that in April this year, the top ten most popular illegal sites for films, series, music, computer programs, photos, e-books and other content were visited by almost 116,000 Latvian Internet users. pageviews, up 86% from 6,332,000 views in February. On average, one visitor spent more than an hour on a torrent site in April, while one user spent half an hour on torrents in February. In March, torrents were visited by 139,687 visitors, which is 22% more than in February, when 114,382 Latvian Internet users visited illegal websites.
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More than a fifth or 21.6% of Internet users admit to using torrent download sites in the last six months, and 66% of those who admit to using these sites do so more than once or a few times a month. 78.4% indicated that they had not used illegal content sites in the last six months, of which 37.9% found that they had done so before. During the last six months and at least once in a lifetime, torrent download sites have been used by 51.4% of respondents, while torrent sites have never been used by 48.6% of survey participants.
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Survey participants indicated that the most frequently downloaded content is movies (67.7%), serials (43%), as well as computer games (35%), computer programs (31.7%), music (27.7%) and e-books. (15.10%).
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Kotzeva emphasized the importance of auditing torrent sites and researching the audience of users, pointing out that the conclusions, facts and data obtained are a serious basis for the association to emphasize this to law enforcement authorities to restrict access to illegal content sites on the Internet.
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“This is the first serious study of the extent of the damage caused by torrents to the legal content industry, which sheds light on the structure of torrent content and the content that users use most illegally,” said the association’s chief executive. .
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