The EUIPO Observatory has published a report titled “Monitoring and analysing social media in relation to IP infringement”.

It found that 11% of conversations regarding physical products could be related to counterfeits, and 35% of conversations on digital content could be related to piracy.

The research for the report analysed public conversations on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Reddit posts in seven languages in Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Poland and Sweden. It covered April to September 2020.

The three physical products with the most conversations possibly related to IPR infringement were clothing, footwear and jewellery while the top three digital products were e-books, TV shows and recorded music.

However, there were notable differences between each of the platforms studied.

The full report, which was commissioned from the MARCO agency, assesses the volume and frequency of IPR infringement on social media. It is in three parts:

(1) a picture of social media uses related to possible IPR infringement;

(2) a measurement of the relative presence of IPR infringement on physical products and digital content on social media; and

(3) identification of key indicators to better recognise IPR infringing business models on social media.

The study found that “social media platforms are tools for recurrent IPR infringement for both physical products and digital content. Furthermore, identifying this type of content is complex due to the varied and constantly changing approaches used by providers of counterfeit products or pirated content, which are widespread across multiple platforms, languages and content types.”

The full study, and the executive summary, can be downloaded from the EUIPO website. Thanks to the EUIPO for sharing the information about the study in its recent newsletter to user associations.