The European Union Intellectual Property Office has just published a new opinion poll on piracy. In particular, we learn that 60% of users who are followers of piracy have also made a habit of buying content through legal channels.
EUIPO or the European Union Intellectual Property Office has just published the results of its report entitled: “European Citizens and Intellectual Property: Perception, Awareness and Behaviour”.
This study aimed to shed light on the position of European users regarding intellectual property and more particularly the piracy of online content.
Europeans are generally against piracy
From a global point of view, the people surveyed are overwhelmingly opposed to illegal downloading. Thus, many of them refute the reasons often given by users to justify piracy:
- 65% of respondents are opposed to considering piracy acceptable for personal use
- 72% are against the argument that the price of content is too high on traditional and legal sales channels
- 74% are against the idea of having recourse to piracy under the pretext of a bad distribution of a film or a series
Hacking more or less tolerated according to age
Furthermore, we learn that acceptance of piracy declines sharply with age. Thus, only 19% of citizens between the ages of 55 and 64 support illegal downloading. This proportion is much higher among 25/34 year olds and 15/24 year olds, namely 41 and 46% respectively.
“Access to content from illegal sources is significantly more common than average among young Europeans. In the 15-24 age group, 27% say they have streamed content from illegal sources to watch sports, and 25% say they have used IPTV platforms to access content illegally. more than double the EU average”, detail the report.
Also read: Illegal downloading – repeated shutdowns of pirate sites are useless, Internet users refuse to pay
Pirates also buy content legally
Still, 80% of respondents (all ages) say they prefer getting content from legal sources, especially if an affordable option is available (in-store promotion, rental, streaming platforms, etc.).
Along these lines, 69% of respondents believe that the quality and range of content offered by legal channels is better than that offered on pirate platforms. In total, 14% of users admitted to using illegal sources in the last 12 months. Only, and this is an important data, among pirates, six in ten also regularly purchased content through legal channels.
