European states top global internet piracy ranking

A new chart ranking that shows the percentage of internet users that visit content piracy sites has a top ten comprised exclusively of European countries.

Latvia tops the list with 46.33 percent of its internet users having visited a pirate site -- certain streaming, torrenting, or file download sites -- with Bulgaria (27.43 percent), Lithuania (24.54 percent), Croatia (22.7 percent) and Spain (22.19 percent) making up the rest of the top five.

In 12th place, Australia (16.61 percent) was the first non-European country represented, according to data that piracy tracking firm MUSO shared with TorrentFreak. Singapore (12.34 percent) was in 21st, Canada (11.38 percent) in 22nd, France (8.49 percent) in 28th, the UK (7.93 percent) in 31st, and South Africa (6.65 percent) just below Saudi Arabia in 34th.

Despite providing nearly 10 billion visits to streaming sites and 3 billion visits to torrent sites, the USA's world-beating figures are thanks to its large base population of internet users. In percentage terms, it actually ranks 38th on 4.89 percent, one place above the Philippines.

China, Japan and Korea were not included in the data set. 141 billion visits to 14,000 of the largest piracy sites were polled.
Percentage of internet users visiting pirate sites:

1. Latvia - 46.33 percent

2. Bulgaria - 27.43 percent

3. Lithuania - 24.54 percent

4. Croatia - 22.70 percent

5. Spain - 22.19 percent

6. Greece - 21.87 percent

7. Serbia - 21.31 percent

8. Ireland - 19.84 percent

9. Romania - 19.07 percent

10. Sweden - 18.38 percent