from www.euroweeklynews.com – IT seems there is little interest in investing in pornography these days in Spain, and X-rated cinemas have closed down, as viewers now only have to access the internet to find a wide variety of films, often for free and in the comfort of their own living rooms.

Several decades ago, the porn industry in Spain was booming, but over the years, it has been on the decline, mainly due to the internet and illegal downloading.

In 1999, according to statistics from SGAE, seven out of every 1,000 cinema-goers watched ‘adult’ films and takings were close to four million euros. Ten years later, these figures have fallen to 1 in every 1,000 and takings of just 903,000 euros.

Meanwhile, the global pornography business is booming with reportedly larger revenues than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined. In 2006 worldwide pornography revenues were estimated at 97 billion US Dollars.

The Spanish pornography industry complains that if there was more control on illegal internet downloading, they may once again be able to make money out of porn, as well as keeping control on films to keep them within the boundaries of the law, but with Spain being the second worst country in the world for internet piracy, until this happens, they can only wait and hope.