Americans split over file sharing
p2pnet.net News:- US public opinion is divided over p2p file sharing, says a new survey of a random sample of 1,062 Americans conducted last month.
Forty-five percent say file sharing services should be outlawed while 39% say they should be allowed, states Digital Life America, a research program launched by Solutions Research Group in Toronto, Canada.
Sixteen percent weren’t sure.
Strongest opposition to file sharing services came from older people: 51% of Americans 50+ said file sharing services should be outlawed, while 27% said they should be allowed.
Regionally, opposition is much higher than average in the West (51% outlaw, 32% allow), and in the South (50% outlaw, 39% allow), says the study
It also found significant differences in opinions by age, education and Internet use.
For instance, support for allowing file sharing services was much higher than average among:
- Younger Internet users aged 12-29 (54% allow, 34% outlaw)
- Those who own mp3 players (55% vs. 35%)
- Broadband users (48% vs. 38%)
- Those who downloaded music – free or paid – sometime in the past (63% vs. 27%)
- Those in the North East (43% vs. 33%).
Those who’d paid for songs online were also in favour of allowing file sharing services - (52% for and 35% against)
“As the first generation raised on the ‘browse, sample and share’ culture of the Internet, young Americans are challenging the traditional notions of intellectual property,” says Kaan Yigit, director of the study.
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June 20th, 2005 at 7:58 pm
Forty-five percent say file sharing services should be outlawed while 39% say they should be allowed
How is that a split? Seems like a majority are against it…
June 20th, 2005 at 9:08 pm
Depends on the accuracy associated with the poll. The wording of the poll, etc. May be the accuaracy is +/-5%. That would put them dead even. The accuracy is probably a lot worse tha that.
June 20th, 2005 at 9:51 pm
“a random sample of 1,062 Americans”
How was it a random sample? How did they pick one person from the next? What made them all different? How did they know the person they’d choose would own a computer? What if most of the 1062 Americans were in one state?
1062 Americans can hardly represent the views of America “young Americans are challenging the traditional notions of intellectual property” - someone needs to kindly point out to Kaan how many people live in America to see how pathetic the “random sample” is.
June 21st, 2005 at 12:30 am
I would guess that the older people that are against filesharring… dont know anything about it… and therefor can’t technically have a viable opinion to judge filesharring…
The internet is creating a new unstoppable culture, were filesharring is just a thing that people do… it doesn’t stop anyone from buying DVDs or music, it just makes it possible to see entertainment before we deside to pay for it…
June 21st, 2005 at 3:11 am
Agreed, 1000 is way too small to be accurate
June 21st, 2005 at 4:01 am
That’s because the older people don’t know the truth about their rights under AHRA and are to lazy to find out!!!! Wait till their kid gets sued and then see what they think!~!!!!
June 21st, 2005 at 5:03 am
Don’t forget about paranoia, which in this case could very well be very justified.
Most people who do file-sharing are fairly technically savy, and KNOW that just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it won’t be done. From personal experience I know that many people who are technically savy and wary of the **AA pirates will avoid p2p services out of concearns for legal safety.
Now call up somebody like this, tell them you are part of a corporate sponsored survey in online piracty, and then start asking them questions…
CYA dude. If this happened to me I would lie my rear off, sounding as much like a **AA stooge as I could in order to keep from getting put on a “watch list”!
June 21st, 2005 at 4:41 pm
Let’s analyze those who are against:
Elderly: people aged 50 and over tend to be computer illiterate, and have a tendency to believe the news as if it were actually truthful! HA!
People in the south: Predominantly the same sheep who vote for republicans despite overwhealming evidence they fix elecitons, lie through their teeth, and lack any respect for the constitution.
People in the west: Most western states are either extremely red states, or they are heavily dominated by the cartels. Biig surprise there.
Basically, the “split” is a result of the “big lie” campaign against the public. Tell a lie long enough and people begin to believe it’s true.
Most people are too placid and idiotic to actually question what is spoon fed to them, and those on the proper side of this fence represent the more intelligent among us.
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:41 am
Clearly you have no clue that the largest Western State is a “Blue” state, if you look at the South, the largest population centers (Dallas, Houston) also voted Blue, and the “Big Lie” that P2P infringment of intellectual property hurts everyone downstream is… deep breath here… TRUE!
I am a Alt. rock record producer who has lost over $700,000 due to P2P trading. Young college graduates who want to work for me must accept work without pay - I just don’t have it to give - thanks to P2P. “Artist development” has virtually disappeared from the record industry (unless you are Lindsay Lohan or Jesse McCartney - mmmm, is that why MTV doesn’t play music? You can’t be a musician unless you have a TV show or movie first?)
P2P has created much more havoc than most youngsters realize.
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:01 pm
How do you calculate that figure? What did you EARN over the period that you “lost” that figure? And since I make $12,000 per year doing something more dangerous than a record producer, why should I care that you “lost” a theoretical $700K to “file sharing?” If you didn’t earn it in the first place, how can you lose it?
Your opinion is obviously formulated based solely on your own personal profits or lack thereof. Special interests are not important to me, the average taxpayer, so I care even less.
I haven’t bought a CD in years because I’ve come to realize the value of a dollar. At my pay rate, $1 is equivalent to ten minutes of my LIFE. The figures you give indicate that $1 is practically dust to you, comparatively. If a CD costs $16 when it is first released, that is 160 minutes = 2 hours and 40 minutes of my life I had to lose just so I can get that magic plastic disk with one or two songs I like and 14 I don’t.
What a great value. You need to analyze your customers’ profit margins instead of your own and figure it out for yourself. On a side note, don’t forget that a lot of the people downloading music are doing so because they really can’t afford to buy it anyway.
June 22nd, 2005 at 10:42 pm
I also question your $700K figure. If you want to be believed, explain
how you came to that number. And please don’t claim that everyone
who d/l one song cost you $1.
Your comments about so-called artist development are crap. Since
when did record companies do ANYTHING to ‘develop artists’. Find
someone who has talent, self-produced first album, match
them up with producers who are proven to make them sound just
like whatever else is selling at the time is more like it.
There are tons of great musicians with real talent. They’re doing it
themselves on independent/smaller labels playing in small clubs
in every city in the US.
yeah I d/l music from p2p if I hear (about) something I might like.
If they are a smaller, up-and-coming artist, I GO TO THEIR CONCERTS
where the tix are $20, not $95, and I buy their CDs
at the shows (ok, so they may not be getting as much of the money
as I’d like, but it’s better than giving it to BestBuy if they even
carry it)
So THE ARTIST gets the money, not the record company or the
middleman. $1 royalty out of $16 - that’s bullshit.
KRS-ONE talks about getting it up to $2 per album which still seem
impossibly tiny. $14 distribution costs - you gotta be frickin kidding
me.
Your industry blew it. They’ve been lying cheating and stealing for
so long, their only response was to try to stop the rotation of the
earth with lawyers. How much money has been wasted on lawyers
and lobbyists, huh?
F the RIAA. F ‘em.
F ‘em up down and sideways.
Thousands of brilliant (technically) talented people created this
wonder called the internet which threw in your lap and amazing
distribution channel that’s almost free. Hard to give up that addiction
to those profits and controlling distribution, idn’t it.
yet, there are still people working on models to compensate artists
(and producers - I realize that you only make money from records
sold), ie. similar to radio licensing model - http://www.eff.org
June 23rd, 2005 at 4:31 am
Congratulations! Components of this thread have made it into Logic Assault at compsolutions.ath.cx/logicassault.html for future generations to laugh at. Thanks for the entertainment.
June 23rd, 2005 at 4:35 am
Have you noticed that people who try to push propaganda, partial truths, or something close to an outright lie…they tend to either not respond any further at all, and in the rare case they do, the response tends to no longer attempt to hide the foolishness or unrespectable motives behind the original post, and the mask is removed from the demons to show a hint of their true image? It’s really very interesting.
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:41 am
…and they also prefer to remain anonymous cowards, not identifying themselves?
they usually also have bad spelling and grammar habits.
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:11 pm
Amen to that…AMEN TO THAT.
Oh, by the way, I lost $1,000,000 to stupidity last year. And I calculate that figure like this:
I would be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company if people were smart; therefore, I lost $1,000,000 because I am not one yet.
Standard media distribution exec thinking. Kind of like the BPI in the UK calculating 3 million in damages by “DVDs that could potentially be produced.” Stupid stupid stupid.
w00t.
June 24th, 2005 at 3:26 am
Intellectual Property is a term that is engineered to be misleading and fallacious. This term is utilized in place of the proper terms “copyrights” and “patents” to push application of physical property rights to non-physical items. “Infringement of intellectual property” implies that “infringement” is taking place against a piece of “property” that simply happens to be “intellectual in nature.” “Infringement of copyrights” is correct, in that it implies “infringement” against “certain rights granted to the author by the government, AKA copyrights.” How can intellect be property?