Italy: "Piracy costs us over €300m per year" (Luigi de Siervo, Lega Serie A)

"'Piracy kills football', as our advert puts it, and that is indeed the case. The leading of lost sheep towards legality has not yet happened, but this law will help to do so thanks to criminal sentences of up to three years imprisonment. There are already timid signs of trend conversion, but there is still a mountain to climb, with over €300m lost per year," said Luigi De Siervo, CEO of the Lega Serie A, at the "States General in the fight against piracy between legality, security and artificial intelligence", an event organised in Rome (Italy) on 18/06/2025.

"I thank Parliament for the law passed (Law no. 93-2023 of 14/07/2023 "for the prevention and repression of the illicit distribution of copyright-protected content via electronic communication networks")," added De Siervo.

38% of Italian adults committed at least one act of piracy in 2024, according to the Ipsos institute, illegally enjoying films (29%), series/fiction (23%), programmes (22%) and live sports (15%), figures that remained virtually stable compared to 2023.

Around 295 million acts of piracy were committed in Italy…