Each year hundreds of millions of films and TV series are consumed illegally in the Nordics. Most of the titles are foreign, but a substantial share is local. Mediavision estimates that almost 130 million Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian films and TV episodes are pirated each year in the region.

Piracy has been a problem in the Nordics and in Sweden in particular since the early days of Internet, giving birth to sites such as Pirate Bay and Swefilmer. Both are now gone – but the problem still remains. According to Mediavision’s research, 14% of the Nordic population 15-74 years admits to having downloaded or streamed video content illegally in the past month. All-in-all Nordic pirates consume more than 300 million films and TV episodes on a yearly basis.

Most of these titles are foreign. However, approximately 40% are of Nordic origin (spoken Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or Finnish). This means that almost 130 million Nordic film and TV series are illegally downloaded or streamed each year.

This is of course a severe challenge for local actors, that are already struggling and rely heavily on subsidies for production financing.