The Ipsos Doxa research for AIE was conducted in October 2025 on a total sample of 3,800 individuals interviewed online (CAWI), which made it possible to collect evidence on three target groups: 2,700 adults (over 15 years old) representative in terms of gender, age, geographic area, size of municipality, profession, and level of education; 805 university students representative by gender, age, and geographic area; and 785 self-employed professionals representative by geographic area.
According to the fourth Ipsos Doxa survey, presented at the AIE and FIEG “Gli Editori” meeting in Rome, book piracy is costing the Italian publishing industry approximately €722 million in lost sales ($857 million) – equivalent to nearly a third of the Italian market – and up from €687 million ($815 million) two years ago.
Printed books, digital books, and databases are pirated by 36% of the population over 15 years old, 76% of university students, and 48% of self-employed professionals (including accountants, doctors, lawyers, notaries, architects, surveyors, engineers, labor consultants, and others). As a consequence, the publishing sector loses approximately 4,500 jobs, rising to 11,500 when related industries are also included. In economic terms, the loss for the national system amounts to nearly €2 billion (€1.95 billion, to be precise) in turnover and €313 million in lost tax revenue.
According to Andrea Riffeser Monti, president of FIEG: “The damage caused by piracy is not only economic. It is also democratic damage. A fragile information system exposes citizens to unverified content, reduces the quality of public debate, and weakens trust in institutions. (…) For this reason, combating piracy must be an integral part of public policies aimed at protecting press freedom, promoting editorial content, regulating digital platforms, and fostering informed digital citizenship.”
The report also suggests losses due to the use of artificial intelligence. AI-generated reworkings of books, in addition to being very widespread, are kept in 45% of cases (60% among university students) and are often (with percentages ranging from 20% to 36%) shared with acquaintances and friends or via electronic communication systems.
The research also highlights that the percentage of people who believe it is likely they will be discovered and sanctioned for piracy-related offenses has increased from 30% to 40%. However, only 34% of the population over the age of 15 is aware that uploading copyrighted materials to AI systems without authorization is illegal.
Innocenzo Cipoletta, president of AIE, said: “This research shows that the spread of AI-generated summaries and reworkings as alternatives to books is already very widespread, and this presents us with two types of problems. The first concerns the quality of study in Italian universities and training programs, which must be preserved. The other concerns the damage that the book supply chain is already suffering significantly, even though it is not yet possible to quantify it precisely. AI systems must be developed and used in compliance with copyright protection laws, because without respect for copyright there is no cultural and creative industry, and without a cultural and creative industry, AI systems themselves would not exist, as they were born and developed using editorial content, often obtained and used unlawfully. For this reason, it is necessary, on the one hand, to carry out information campaigns to increase awareness among Italian users about piracy in relation to Artificial Intelligence and, on the other hand, to require big tech companies to comply with European regulations contained in the AI Act, starting with transparency regarding the sources used to train algorithms – a transparency that is currently a major black box. On this issue, the government can still do more.”
Image credits: Silvia Loré