30% of UK File-Sharers Intend To Pirate More In The Next 12 Months

enigmax
May 3, 2012
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According to a report from a leading UK law firm, nearly 30% of UK file-sharers say they intend to pirate more movies, music, games and ebooks during the next 12 months. The entertainment industries shouldn’t be too disappointed though – 36% and 34% of paying music and movie customers say they’ll consume more in the year to come.

UK lawfirm Wiggin has delivered its 2012 Digital Entertainment Survey. The study, which polled 2,500 UK respondents representative of the
national demographic, is packed with lots of interesting statistics.

The study’s coverage is broad, but for the purposes of this summary we’ll take a look at the elements relating to unauthorized consumption of digital products.

The first section of the survey covers people’s entertainment activities such as watching TV, listening to music or reading ebooks. Despite the piracy crisis complained about by the entertainment industries, out of a Top 40 most popular activities list, it takes until position 34 for an unauthorized activity to appear.

Just 6% of respondents said they download movies or TV shows from linking and hosting sites. Even less – 5% – said they obtain video from regular file-sharing sites. When it comes to people acquiring unauthorized music online, the figure is a modest 5% of respondents. Just 4% said they obtain eBooks unlawfully.

Zooming in on the various age categories shows that file-sharing is mostly a habit of younger men. Of all men between 15 and 19 years old, 14% admitted downloading movies and TV-shows through file-sharing sites, compared to 2% of women. This percentage drops to 1% for both men and women aged 45 and up.

When it comes to those already consuming media from unauthorized sources, the survey indicates that they aren’t in any hurry to stop soon.

Of those confessing to an existing file-sharing habit, 29% said they would download more eBooks and 28% said they would download more games and software in the next 12 months. When it comes to downloading music from file-sharing sites and cyberlockers, the uptick is 28% and 26% respectively.

But overall respondents say they will use more legal alternatives too. Of those already streaming ad-supported music, 27% said they would do more during the next year. Of music fans already paying for a monthly streaming subscription, 36% said they would consume more music in that way.

Of current unauthorized movie and TV show downloaders, 26% said they would consume more from file-sharing sites during the next year, dropping to 24% for those who prefer cyberlockers. Of those already paying for their movies either from PPV or on-demand services, 34% said they would consume more over the next 12 months.

Interestingly, when it comes to a change of habits during the next year, between 15% and 19% of current downloaders said they would do less, a figure closely matched (18%) by those slowly abandoning DVDs. The good news for the movie industry is that 30% of current movie goers expect to go even more in the year to come.

For those who prefer to do their file-swapping offline with friends using USB sticks and hard drives, 26% said they would be doing more of that during the next 12 months, something that no ISP blockade can do anything about.

The Wiggin law firm counts many big entertainment companies as clients so expect some of the results of this survey to be quoted by the industry at a later date. One that stands out concerns the attributes of an online service that indicates to the user “that a site is legitimate and the content [offered by it] is legal.”

29% of respondents said that a site ranking high in Google’s results would make it stand out as legitimate. Of course, the entertainment industries are trying to pressure Google into downgrading sites like The Pirate Bay so this will add fuel to their fire.

On the thorny issue of regulating Internet content, 40% either “strongly” or “slightly” disagreed with the notion that the Internet should be regulated in the same way as TV while a total of 58% thought that it should.

When it comes to controlling the Internet in order to police unlawful downloading, a total of 53% said they thought greater regulation is required. Just 18% disagreed, a gift to the lobbyists.

The full report can be downloaded here (pdf).

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Barse

I will pirate as much as I can and store it all so I can be a “seeder” when new file sharing technology takes over from bittorrent. It’s still illegal of course, but I don’t feel I can support the entertainment industries at all with their current products and their current stance on file-sharing. The remedies for copyright infringement are excessive. The Kim Dotcom and the O’Dwyer case are examples of this.
A Likely Story

Odd, a straw poll in my office recently put it as about 80% regularly downoaded torrents, and those that didn’t were keen to have tips on what to do!

Obviously completely at odds to their results, however my view of Law firms that are linked to the entertainment industry lends me to think that they are talking out of their rectums.
- Jeff
  
  Yeah they are full of shit !
  
  Time to go through this with a fine tooth comb.
  
  Let’s discredit this obviously biased “study”.
- UsPatriot
  
  “– 36% and 34% of paying music and movie customers say they’ll consume more in the year to come.”
  
  Ya right! My ass!
  
  I know that there is a lot of stupid human down there but still giving money to some corporate assholes who are going to get you?
  
  I don’t think so!
- Anonymous
  
  just as Lawrence explained I didn’t know that someone able to earn $4308 in one month on the computer. have you seen this webpage ===>> http://seekwork2home.blogspot.com/
- Anonymous
  
  as Sean implied I am dazzled that a student able to make $9187 in one month on the computer. did you look at this site ===>> http://seekwork2home.blogspot.com/
- Anonymous
  
  Here are few tips by using which you can earn so much money in couple of days. In start you will face so many difficulties but later on you will get various ways to earn money over Internet. Everything takes some time to get to know, same the case with it, but we will tell you the kick-start way of earning through Internet which would be much more worthwhile for you. Last week I got a site, where you can kick a good start, Look this for further details. ? http://earnusdathome.weebly.com/
- Anonymous
  
  what James replied I’m dazzled that anyone can get paid $4740 in four weeks on the internet. did you look at this web site==???===>>> http://earnusdathome.weebly.com/
Botnet

When will people realize that technology decides how the market performs – Not governments, not private interest groups, not the RIAA. The decision is simply not their choice to make. Move over dinosaurs, the software is in the driver’s seat now.
- Gyuguyyu
  
  According to this survey the brain dead are in the driver’s seat. Take a look at the world around you ….maybe it is true?
http://twitter.com/happyizpunjai happy

For every ying there is a yang. for every dark there will be a light. this is how life will be balance. and filesharing will always be there for everyone option.
http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja

Sampling method pls. Wait, it’s biased anyways, why would I tell a law firm that I’ll pirate more when it’s clear my country is putting effort into outlawing file sharing?

Ahem. Fuel to the bribes.. I mean, lobbying.
- Why
  
  Its as biased as the sampling from a shampoo commercial.
http://zapit.nu/EasyCash LazyCash9.Com

See how somebody earning from home. According to a report from a leading UK law firm Wiggin, nearly 30% of UK file-sharers say they intend to pirate more movies, music, games and ebooks during the next 12 months.
Anonymous

I will never allow my money to be spent on any MAFIAA Product.I will support INDIE Content only.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=754363628 Neil McCormick
  
  Will and do – the main players can get stuffed until they give something meanful and at a valid price….
  - Vilhelm
    
    “Will and do – the main players can get stuffed….”
    
    There – fixed it for you! ;)
Frerik

Wiggin?

Is that the same legal practice that only takes instructions (i.e. only acts for copyright holders, not for those of us attacked by rights holders)? So they can hardly be said to be impartial in this field. It is in their direct interest to produce a report that supports the proposition that wholesale and damaging copyright infringements are bringing the creative industries to its needs! They do not fail in this.
Anonymous

Don’t think too many opened their filesharing souls to this law firm.

Still, what strikes me most about their reported numbers is the thought that, even though the p2p filesharing universe is HUGE in absolute terms, it’s stll barely a pimple on the ass of the Intellectual Property consuming universe.

This speaks to possibility of future growth in unpredictable directions.

Perhaps the new digital distribution competitors; like MegaUpload, Private trackers, streaming sites, can create the Intellectual Property Distribution market of the future to replace the existing system based on Monopoly Copyright.

That would require the kind of innovating zeal; competitive stamina; and, committed political activism that can barely be understood, much less predicted. Nevertheless, that preponderant mass of sonambulant customers who stumblle into the existing channels of distribution to forfeit their monopoly premiums is still out there to be pursuaded that indeed the Copyright Laws are an Economic, Moral, and Legal disgrace worth repacing with a more efficient, equitable, and direct system of Intellectual Property Distribution.

As a Citizen I root daily for this change because of its Political Significance: I think that this change is essential to the Constitutional Rights and Democratc Electoral processes that offer individual citizens respite from the abuses and controls of oligarchic minorities.

Perhaps, however, the existing Corporate elites can protect their legal, political, and economic fiefdoms, such as they are. That would require only more of what we have already seen: Legal redrafting to annul Civil Liberties; greater restictions on the rights of Privacy, Free Speech, and Freedoms from arbitrary warrantless seizures; grants of Immunity to priviledged Institutional entities for damages inflicted on private individuals; administrative presumption of guilt, rather than innocence; denial of Due Process access to Appelette Courts through imposed Commercial Terms of Service Contracts; and, Corporate collusion to impose constraints on customers across vast national markets, as in the SIx Strikes regime.

The vast majority of citizens are yet out there to be awakened and persuaded.

Those who think that the risks are merely Economic have missed the point. Those risks are like the Iceberg that sank the Titanic: Almost all of the really lethal risk is buried under the water.
Wayne

Percentages are surely not right? In both my middle, high school and college everyone pirates – back in middle school I remember every single person I knew used Limewire, I even heard students talking to a teacher about it and even they said they file share.

I’m assuming they just didn’t want to truthfully answer if they pirated – OR – it’s just my area which pirates like crazy (most of the school were lower-middle class but we had one or two rich people and I knew atleast one of them pirated.) :D
- Guest
  
  Well, I can give you my experience, and in my college, most people I know pirate, but most of the people I am acquainted with say they don’t. Part of that is who I know; I know the rich guys, and they’re really likely to pirate, but there are rich guys I don’t know very well who don’t pirate.
  
  It’s not impossible that your conclusion is correct, but I’d be quicker to attribute to selection bias until science proves otherwise.
- MadAsASnake
  
  Really, how many people with give accurate answers to these questions to a law firm of all organisations – especially while MAFIAA is so buy equating it with criminal behaviour and terrorism.
http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

This survey and its results are a crock of shit created BY corporate shills FOR corporate shills.

Move on please. Nothing to see here.
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Anonymous

Ahaha they should have done the survey at my high school
Anonymous

the stupidity of the situation is that the percentage of people that buy stuff increases after they have listened to music or watched a movie that has been downloaded ‘illegally’ or ‘file shared’ with someone already known. if only the entertainment industries would actually take notice of FACTS instead of keep trying to convince people of the bullshit that they put out. the money that has been lost and payed out by the industries trying to maintain control of what is out of their control is unbelievable. the money they could have made, if even a modicum of foresight and sense had been used, is phenomenal!
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=754363628 Neil McCormick
  
  Agree – Bought the entire book series of “A Song of Ice and Fire” that George J J Martin has so far written after downloading the first two episodes of “Game Of Thrones”…..No DVD’s out here yet but will buy if they have the usual add-ons of scenes deleted, interviews etc – love those bits…
  - MadAsASnake
    
    This is the real dynamic of modern media sales – MAFIAA don’t seem to get it. People in a digital connected world expect to be able to make assessments of quality before committing their hard earned cash.
- Guest
  
  “the percentage of people that buy stuff increases after they have
  listened to music or watched a movie that has been downloaded
  ‘illegally’ or ‘file shared’ with someone already known.”
  
  Can you link to research proving that? I’m aware of data showing file-sharers purchase more on the whole, but I am aware of no research saying it happens in the order you claim.
  - Anonymous
    
    We certainly can. There are two government studies coming to this conclusion.
    
    Try this one:
    
    http://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/vaneijk/Ups_And_Downs_authorised_translation.pdf
    - Guest
      
      They didn’t come to that conclusion.
      
      On page 119, they say “One possible explanation for the fact that major shifts are not expected in the hypothetical situation that downloading would no longer be possible, could be that discovering new music, films and games – resulting at times in a purchase – is a key driving force behind file sharing. In this case the internet is used to explore new content and facilitate choice. That said, a degree of substitution cannot be ruled out and the finding that major shifts would not occur if file sharing were no longer possible could be attributed to demand driven by a distinct lack of purchasing power”.
      
      They said it’s a possibility, but they don’t claim to have enough data to make this into a conclusion. They do have enough data to make other conclusions, but they only say it’s a possibility that being exposed to new content makes filesharers purchase more.
      
      Notable in that study is that only slightly more filesharers were surveyed who thought they would purchase less if they could not download then those that thought they would purchase more.
      
      So, in short, that study has not proved that claim made above. As far as I can see, it’s still a belief held, not a fact known.
      
      P.S. If you’re going to claim a 128 page paper makes a certain claim, please link to the page. It’s a bit of a hassle to look through, and since I didn’t have time to read it all, I may be missing the page that actually made the conclusion you’re thinking of.
http://zapit.nu/EasyCash LazyCash9.Com

???????? See Above Links Someone earn at home Yes. The warrant is a court doc and all information obtained under that
warrant should remain in that purveiw and for nothing else. So Mafiaa
cannot ride shotgun snooping for potential infringement in these cases.
Lulz

Here’s a little factoid known only to insiders: Wiggin, or more precisely partner Simon Baggs, pioneered the use of Web blocking in the UK. They pioneered it against Newzbin1 (see the law report http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2010/608.html). This report is Baggs pimping himself & his firm to the content industry. It’s PR no more with questions designed to produce the answers that help that.

Forget clowns like Andrew Crossley it’s Wiggin that Anonymous Lulzsec etc. need to knock off the web. You know, an eye for an eye. How about a ote on that one guys?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Frank-White/100002970542124 Frank White

It’s the last couple of paragraphs that I find really disturbing:

“”On the thorny issue of regulating Internet content, 40% either
“strongly” or “slightly” disagreed with the notion that the Internet
should be regulated in the same way as TV while a total of 58% thought
that it should.

When it comes to controlling the Internet in order to police unlawful
downloading, a total of 53% said they thought greater regulation is
required. Just 18% disagreed, a gift to the lobbyists.”"

So you were wondering why, despite all the loud public outcry against some of these laws, so many of them still get passed? Sure, the money changing hands is a big part of it. But apparently it’s also because the majority of your neighbors are arse-holes. But you already knew that, right?

Seriously, I’d be really interested in knowing the age and computer/internet experience of most of those in support of stronger regulation. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that a very significant portion of those in favor are also amongst those with the least computer/internet experience, who don’t spend a lot of time online and/or don’t use the internet for much more than email, Facebook, and movie times. In other words, the least qualified once again have the biggest voice. Hurrah for democracy.

But also, as Lulz pointed out, maybe there’s good reason to doubt those percentages in the first place, considering where they came from….
- Anonymous
  
  I would dearly like to know how they phrased the questions. I do know that the lobby in Sweden presented a poll on whether the public would like to see more oversight against malicious malware, viruses and images of criminal activity such as sex with children – and then promptly presented that 60% of the population would welcome harder regulation of internet downloading…
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Guest

Did they really think that people would willingly tell a law firm their online habits? For all the interviewees know the law firm could choose to adopt Andrew Crossley tactics in the near future and were looking at their prospects for mass subpoenas.
http://www.sensibilium.com/ Sir Oblong of Orange

58% of 2500 respondents want a father figure to tell them what to do and not to do on the Internet.
Lethn

2,500 people is not a legitimate and impartial survey of UK filesharers, especially when done by a company that could easily be working for an ant-piracy group. I remember watching some BBC coverage when they were doing a survey on who could win the elections and it showed the conservatives winning by a vast majority but in absolutely tiny writing it read it was sampled from about 5000 people from the UK.

Do not trust these surveys and polls! Double check the made up science and math done by these people!
- Lethn
  
  just an fyi I can’t remember the exact number the BBC had posted in their tiny writing so we couldn’t read it, but I was probably being generous with the 5000 number.
madheadBANGer666

I’m getting a 4MBps dedicated internet connection and a desktop with a 2TB HDD only to share and download torrents.

lol. m/

Keep sharing torrent fellas.
Coz ya all know, SHAREing is CAREing. :D
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Boneyy

Instead of companies like activision charge £39.99 for a call of duty game wen comes out,charge £10.00 and everyone will buy it instead of pirating…they sold milions of copies Only IN THE UK, the last game Activision won money for produce the entire Call of duty series of games….thats y piracy even more gets a major role on the internet,because everything are so expensive…instead of thjat big companies (capitalists) winning 100 milions of profit in one game,if they sell it for £10 each they still win milions of £££ and they will give a down on piracy,I WILL BUY ALL EDITIONS,I CANT AFFORD PAYING £40 FOR A GAME
Anonymous

http://simurl.com/cahnuv
Bill

I do have a great business solution to the problem of “illegal File sharing” and tbh i think it would please a lot of people – both the users of torrents and the ISP and the MPAA and other companies – YES PEOPLE THERE IS A SOLUTION!

but people won’t listen to me for some strange reason. – and i state now that this is an idea that I really should be protecting by a patent of some kind and possibly some form of intellectual property Rights / Copyright laws.. – so if by posting this message here i can somehow legitimise this idea as being mine that would be great… (take note if the MPAA RIAA or any other group decides to use this without permission and make money from it i will be knocking on their door with a Lawsuit for a substantial sum)

However if they would like to consider the idea then great they can contact Torrent-freak whom in turn can contact me…

The Idea

What is wrong with Every single ISP saying ok would you like to use torrents if so add £20 to the bill each month and we will put that in a pot with all the other ISPs doing the same… then each month that £20 for the “Optional” use of torrents from everyone is counted up by an independent organization that splits the money Fairly between all the industires such as music films and entertainment. BUT

All the independant artist labels get priority over the big organisations. – and all artists would have to sign up with a dedicated torrent release group that allows them to claim their fair share of the money they earned… services such as Vodo and Vimeo would be ideal for independent artists to sign up to as that would then mean these small promotions companies get to really pay their artists properly…

Then once they have been paid by the Independent organization the other industries can then get their fair share of the money that they require for the fact that yes people probably will download the odd film.

The MPAA and the RIAA or whoever it is can then say nothing at all as the problem between them and the file sharers will be resolved and i am sure that every file sharer would agree that this is a sensible solution. – rather than making the whole thing illegal and criminalizing loads of young people who half of which can’t afford to pay £39.99 for the latest games every time they release one.

then that way – the ISP can put a block on all the file sharing sites they want for those that have chosen not to pay for the right to download content via torrent. and theMPAA / RIAA will be able to then Legitimize their concern and fine those that really then are pirating goods.

Filesharing isn’t a crime.
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Anonymous

Get reported, spammer :P
yello

whooooa… they put movies on t.v. ?? where have i been… oh right, pirating stuff…..

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