A third of Brits are ‘digital pirates’
p2pnet news | P2P:- About a third of Britons are digital ‘pirates,’ or they’ll become copyright infringers in the future, says a new report.
What motivates them to stray from the straight and very narrow?
Simple.
Lack of choice.
The conclusions come in the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey from Wiggin Entertainment Media research.
What about all the shock-horror ‘prosecution’ stories promoted in the mainstream media by the entertainment cartels?
Most downloaders, “don’t believe they will be caught in the first place,” says the report.
Indeed, it goes on, one in two say they’d keep on downloading, “even if there were more stories about prosecution because they perceive only a small chance of being caught”.
And, “For male teenagers, it is even less effective,” with nearly two in three saying they’d continue downloading.
The main reason “piracy is so rife”.
Seventy percent of ‘pirates’ don’t think ‘legal’ sites have the range of content of illegal ones, says the report, and not only that, most (68%) so-called copywrite fringers believed it takes longer to acquire content from corporate sites than the P2P networks.
And that’s the main reason “piracy is so rife”.
What’s the profile of a typical pirate?
S/he’s a media heavy consumer and purchaser of considerable quantities of legal content in addition to unauthorised content, says the study, going on nearly two out of three ‘pirates’ say they’d pay for legal downloads if what they wanted was available.
“In terms of deterring piracy, unauthorised downloaders concede that one of the most compelling reasons to quit would be the receipt of a cease and desist warning from their ISP,” says the survey.
Seven out of 10 would stop if this were to, happen, it claims.
Fear of being caught is also a strong deterrent in theory, but two outof three believe it’s very unlikely that’ll ever happen, it states.
Mobiles for downloading or streaming
What about DRM?
“Around half believe it to be a nuisance, that it invades consumer rights and it indicates content providers have insufficient trust in consumers not to share content,” the report declares, going on, “Feelings among male teenagers are even stronger with nearly 2 in 3 considering DRM a nuisance.”
And that’s putting it mildly 
In terms of future activity, “consumers currently show relatively limited interest in starting to use their mobiles for downloading or streaming,” says the study adding:
“Fo rinstance just 5% of thos epeople not currently downloading music to their mobiles state that they are very keen to start.
“This suggests that the market is unlikely to grow significantly in the near future.
“We expect that as mobiles become more sophisticated media players with better storage and the cost of data charges decreases activity levels will incrase accordingly.”
So stay tuned
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if B
March 8th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Lack of choice, and lack of money. Also I wouldn’t be participating in any surveys which used that kind of language, “piracy-theft-illegal” that kind of thing, and feel this site uses it overly much as well.
They think continually jacking up CD prices will offset their losses? They’re ignorant, arrogant, and stupid. $35-$40 is unrealistic. No wonder people look to download, and don’t consider the copyright crap which they abuse the legal system with. Even if CDs were free I’d still download. It’s common sense to figure out why.