ESA: 54% of illegal file swapping comes from Brazil, China, France, Italy and Spain

The ESA has named Brazil, China, France, Italy and Spain as the five countries with "extraordinarily high" levels of online game piracy.

The findings were revealed in a "Special 301" report filed with the U.S. Trade Representative by the International Intellectual Property Alliance - a government body tasked with combating worldwide copyright infringement, reports Gamasutra.

The ESA, which is a member of this organization, issued a watch list consisting of 33 countries which it feels are not doing enough to quell issues of copyright infringement, with the aforementioned countries considered the worst offenders with 54 percent share of the peer-to-peer sector.

Those involved in the report, cited over 144 million connections in unauthorized game sharing, with the top five countries accounting for 78 million sources of P2P sharing - a number which is fives times that of the US.

"Our industry continues to grow in the U.S., but epidemic levels of online piracy stunt sales and growth in a number of countries, including Italy, China, Spain, Brazil and France, where we see crushing volumes of infringing peer-to-peer activity involving leading game titles," says ESA president and CEO Michael Gallagher who said flashcarts are still readily available despite recent laws against them.

The IIPA and ESA recommends that the USTR impose trade sanctions on offending countries after a set investigation period and add Spain to the "Priority Watch List" due to its seemingly relaxed policies on the issue of piracy.

It was recommended that Brazil remain on the regular Watch List, along with Italy, while China and Canada will continue to remain on the Priority List.