Watching Porn Online More Acceptable Than Pirating Music

Ernesto
January 13, 2010
99
adult,
piracy,
survey
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A survey conducted by the New Zealand based research firm UMR Research found that nearly half of the respondents think that it’s morally okay to watch porn on the Internet. Downloading music and movies illegally, on the other hand, is frowned upon by an overwhelming majority of the respondents.

pirates A recent survey among 1000 New Zealanders has revealed some interesting findings regarding the pleasures of the Internet. Of the polled group, nearly half (41%) thought that watching porn online is morally acceptable.

Downloading music illegally, or watching a movie online without paying, was okay with a much smaller group, 18 and 13 percent respectively.

In fact, hiding your online porn viewing habits from your spouse is still more morally accepted than downloading a movie or music album without paying for it. Of the respondents, 18 percent thought that is was fine to secretly watch porn in a marriage.

At first sight the results of the survey are not really that surprising. Downloading music and movies without consent from the copyright holders is in violation of the local laws in New Zealand and watching porn obviously isn’t. Still, a closer look at the findings reveals some remarkable inconsistencies.

Firstly, most of the adult entertainment is actually viewed on sites that are dominated by copyright infringing content. So, many of the people who watch porn online are actually pirating as well, without realizing it.

Another remarkable finding was that people seem to be fine with copyright infringement if it’s on a video streaming site such as YouTube. Of all respondents, 31 percent said that it is morally acceptable to stream copyrighted TV-shows on YouTube, while only 13 percent believed that downloading copyrighted video was morally okay.

Thus, streaming copyrighted content is somehow perceived as more acceptable for some odd reason. The 5 percent difference between the moral acceptability of music and video downloading is another mystery that is left unexplained.

Overall, this survey shows how malleable peoples’ perceptions are when it comes to copyright issues online, with approval rates swaying back and forth between different types of media and the various distribution platforms.

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Tigger

Lol, interesting read.
I stopped downloading porn a while back, mainly because i found out the porn industries were “in bed” with the pro-copyright groups.
BUT i still stream it (redtube anyone?) when the *cough* need arises =)
Weird that, i guess im the same as alot of these people polled really…it somehow feels more of a copyright violation having the data stored on my hard disk, than streaming it from someone elses…hmmmm
That being said, making porn illegal would be funny, might as well make sex illegal – biological functions never listen to the law makers! heh =)
Wow…i appear to be first =)
ytb

hey why pick when you can do both?
lol

Copyrighted TV-show???

The viewers are not paying to what the TV-show on the TV set, so they’re all infingers? LOL

MAFIAA you need to look into this. You could make millions…
rockadayberry

i do both continuously,downloading great music,and while i listen to it i masturbate to online porn,and it´s great.what a life.i´m 59.
Virotelisa

If you take the moral high ground somewhere it is best to take it at a place without any backlash for yourself.

As porn is something more universally demanded among people then music and video’s people will tolerate it more often because it would adversely affect them if it was forbidden. That porn is more or less another kind of movie is easily forgotten.

Hypocritical? Most certainly. But that is simply the way most people behave.
pirateboi

Not only that, but people seem to think that it is okay to hurt the pornography industry. Most of us have never even bought a porno, so we are even more culpable for using and never giving back with porn than with music and or movies! It’s terrible. I talked to a friend of mine and he said he didn’t care if the porn industry failed, because there is so much that it doesn’t matter, and it only serves to hurt young women (which btw I disagree with as porn objectifies the man more)
g

A lot of the reason people feel justified to “pirate” TV is because the shows are only on at certain times or not available in your country. This is less of an issue with music. Of course some music is out of print or difficult to find, but it’s usually available.
Anonymous

What if you’re pirating your porn is that acceptable?

Also, to make things clear this day and age almost everyone has watched porn at least once, and everyone has “infringed” at least once, espeacially when you consider they want to make streaming a song on youtube an “infringement”

The end of the labels are at hand.
lol

infringe this, infringe that.

when will it stop.
United

@lol

We need to unite bro. There are nearly a billion of us out there. If we all unite our elected Gov’t should listen to us, instead of the (other) law makers (aka the entertainment industry)

@Raisin Brain Troll (aka Reason Mind)

Obvious troll is obvious.
Zippo

The irony is that a lot of free YouTube-like porn sites are chock-full of pirated videos. lol
Zush

I guess people from some US states would prefer downloading music to watching porn online?
Realist

when you stream its downloaded temporarily to your computer anyway!, those of you who dont know on linux check you /tmp directory and youll see so you can save anything that has to buffer and dont have to download just copy the file ;-) . Im sure its the same for windows but i dont know the directory ( i dont use windows)
Phill

Everyone in NZ knows someone who knows someone who has hundreds of drives just full of downloaded content.

And everyone who knows someone who knows someone wants something from them, or at least directions on how.
duane

Those results should be taken with a grain of salt.

About half the respondents were women, and I doubt they have much use for porn. My guess is, most of the men said online porn is fine, which is where the 41% “porn good” number came from.

As for illegal downloads, I have a feeling that people were being very cautious against that question. Many people download infringing stuff, but not many are prepared to own up to it, or come out and say they approve (even in an anonymous poll).

As for YouTube, I’m not surprised. Very few people realise there is infringing material on YouTube.
Rboy

Just wondering does You-tube pay fees for all the copyrighted stuff uploaded there? I have always assumed there is some sort of agreement or they would have been sued out of existence. You tube would be you-who? without all the music and other stuff on the site
DeltaPan

Polls such as this are simply so much nonsense in my opinion.

How did they select or solicit those 1000 respondants, how advertised was the survey and what is the demographic cross section.

These things can be made to indicate whatever those responsible for running them want them to, basically a manipulation to steer public opinion, essentially saying there’s a supposed majority consensus, in this case so many out of a mere 1000, so people should think like the majority do and not the minority, which is how a great many people do tick over, they see a majority opinion and are influenced consciously and more often subconsciously compelled to, follow that majority.

It’s actually a refined science in modern times, a strategy employed in many areas, opinion polls, used by a lot of organisations, agencies etc etc, to influence public opinion because it’s modern human nature to go with what the majority says (Even if that majority is from a small sample of the community/population, dependant on where the poll respondants are sourced from which can be targetted to attain a greater consensus than if random sourced, people get influenced, more with every repitition of similar.).
In a sense this is the correct thing to do when communities and society evolve to a collective opinion, but not if it’s in the form of minor polls which are usually a form of manipulation using a small number to influence opinion of a greater number, that repeated a few times can infleuence people into doing very wrong things, or influence governments into legistlating against the common good etc and so on so forth.

Opinion shaping is a common operandi of tabloids and i tend to take all polls with a pinch of salt, and over the left shoulder as it were.

Like nonsense MORI polls and such similar in the run up to the UK election, does nothing but influence people presenting itself as popular opinion when it isn’t, just cherry picked stats to shape opinion which isn’t actually the majority opinion/consensus, just being made to look like it is so that agneda does grow in support.

I doubt if a national poll of all kiwi citizens was made it would reflect similar consensus ratios as supposed in the item, the opinion vectors would be very different.

Peace. :)
alienjoe

Hi, Here’s how to get yourself a free PS3, iPod, wii or even cash!. Just go to – urfreegifts.com It’s FREE and has been researched by the BBC to be absolutely genuine. Simply go to the site and select the gift you would like or cash if you prefer. For full info and proof its real just go to http://www.urfreegifts.com
DeltaPan

@ 18.

No it bloody well hasn’t, it hasn’t been touched by the BBC.

I just checked!

Just spammed all over the place.

[Please remove post 18 and this post referring to it please.]
Anonymous

What about pirating pron?
Mark

Ok I’ll download to my seedbox then stream it!

Legal now? …. damit oh well,
as far as I can tell

the survey asked whether downloading x is “morally acceptable” with no regards to it being “copyright infringement” or not. So, “most of the adult entertainment is actually viewed on sites that are dominated by copyright infringing content” and the likes aren’t that much “remarkable” if you keep in mind that (c) =/= moral.
In other words, when asked about moral, significant part of NZ residents don’t think about copyright, and that’s all.
Thanks for the info regardless.
Anonymous

@6

If the porn industry dies tomorrow, I won’t shed a tear. I personally favor amateur stuff that real people make, not fake models. And those people will still be making porn if the studios die out.

I mean, it’s not like we need big corporations to guarantee that we get our entertainment fix, be it music or porn.

Preemptive @Reasoned Mind/neo

Obvious troll is obvious.
Trelew

The problem with polls, like all statistics, they can be manipulated to say whatever the person (or corporation) wants them to say so as better to justify their actions. By and large, these things are a joke.
Haha

I don’t have any morals so I don’t have to worry about these things.
rndpirate

Personally i haven’t downloaded a movie quite a while, except inglorious basterds, that is imo worth to even buy on dvd.

The fact is there are nowadays so many video hosts that allows users to upload movies/tv shows/porn that i have found it more easier to just stream it online. With 10 + mbit/s connection as standard in most places, it’s no problem to stream big movie anymore.
If it’s good, then i will download/buy it, if it’s crap, like most of the stuff nowadays produced by Hollywood, it’s not even worth to spend my bandwidth and my hdd on it. Except for porn … one of the base reason for internet is that people can share their porn for free, ether download or stream ;)

Music, on other hand, is something different. I do not download much any more because it is just mainstream crap that get’s shoved down your throat every single day.
Still with music i would like to own it, meaning it’s stored in my hdd as mp3.

Morally i have no problems downloading/streaming because i have no other affordable alternatives. I would happily pay for reasonably priced quality service that allows me to get what *I* need (not what the industry wants me to get) without any stupid DRM or other restrictions. Untill the industry fails to understand that, i will continiue downloading/streaming.
Temo

My trolling sensors started tingling with this news o_0
Pensive

This just in: things people do more often, they are more likely to find less morally reprehensible than things they don’t do as often or at all. News at 11.

Downloading torrents still has a learning hump that most don’t bother to climb.
Cujo

with all the possible sueing going on in the UK ,, i’m surprized the corperate flunkies aren’t going after the amature porn group for pu$$y infridment

was that on topic?? :D
Anonymous

“A survey conducted by the New Zealand based research firm UMR Research found that nearly half of the respondents think that it’s morally okay to watch porn on the Internet. Downloading music and movies illegally, on the other hand, is frowned upon by an overwhelming majority of the respondents.”

Ya Right!

Now we know what to do with all the survey “”"results”"”! comming out of UMR “”"Research”"”:

IN THE CRAPER!
Cujo

excuse the grammer ,, i didn’t hit the g spot hard enough and in all the excitment i missed the e “infridgement”
woody

@18
have they got any free porn?
Brandon

Some porn sites lets you download full length pornos for free, which is pretty cool. You don’t even have to sign up just download them. I think that would be frnnging but I guess not…
Anonymous

@16 It depends on the holder of the copyright really. Some of the more idiotic people will ask that the video is taken down or the sound removed from the video, but other companies have come into agreements that instead of taking them down youtube will add advertisements on infringing videos. I believe Kadokawa is one of the companies that have entered such an agreement. As a matter of fact, a link: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-01-03/kadokawa-gets-over-10-million-yen-monthly-from-youtube there’re other links in the article than help explain it a bit more but it’s a system that makes sense.
Darth_Tater

I think I have a solution.
Everyone in New Zealand could make their own porn and then upload it to an in country torrent provider.

This would solve the whole copyright issue.

I suspect the quality of the product would be substandard (with probably lots of sheep)
Although they did do a pretty good job on lord of the rings.
Sam

…Well, duh. Nothing there I didn’t already know about society. Move along people, nothing to see here.
Phill

Do you realise how expensive hosting is in New Zealand?
Think about it

Lord of the Rings porn? You mean with the Nobbit, Dildo Gaggins?
Ninja

only 1k people? and how was the sample chosen? did they get the people in various locations to prevent bias?

I personally don’t believe in any poll unless I know how it was done.

But yeah, we can see people don’t really understand copyright and the threats it causes. They also fail to understand that porn companies also need to earn money so watching porn for free over the net is as bad as downloading music.

Another good example on how copyright laws are failures…
GrX

i’m going to put an end to this

i pay a tv licence so if i want to download missed tv shows i will i paid for that right and i will never change that view since usa people and everyone else all over the world don’t pay anything at all (licence) i feel i need my money’s worth.

downloading music/games/movies again i like a million others pay a lot of money for broadband lol everyone in the world who has broadband has it for one reason and one reason only and that is to download why else would anyone or everyone incl you and millions like you pay large amount of money a month for fast broadband if you wasn’t meant to use it?

isp’s would be like a ghost town if you couldn’t download what point would there be for broadband. why does no body else get it?

as for watching streaming porn well

“the internet is for porn” that says it all.
Hom3r

To me it sounds like most of the people they asked had very little knowledge of how computers/internet works.
neostyles

I stopped downloading porn a while back, mainly because i found out the porn industries were “in bed” with the pro-copyright groups.

I know. Shocking hu? How they want to earn money off of their own work. Just unbelievable.
Mehz

what happends if you download porn and took that quiz? lol
iNDEPENDENT

The thing they forgot to mention is that the people they interviewed are all working for the MAFIAA.
MPAA

@3

MILLIONS you say? We better get started
Anonymous

its all about the money and that is why everything cost an arm and a leg and people are out their dying because of copyrights and patents. what do the big companies like to always say no we cannot produce this or this cheaper because it may hurt us even if will help somebody in a developing country. what is next? i guess a few years down the road people will be getting take down notices because they posted some copyrighted material about some epidemic, virus or outbreak. copyright and patents are going to kill the world one day lmfao
Anonymous

Off topic:
What a terrible tragedy that struck Haiti today. Its a shame that we filthy thieving pirates could not start a fund of some kind to help out these unfortunate people. Maybe something from one of the Pirate Parties or something, just to prove we are not what the media makes us out to be. Just a thought.
Le Fake

A sort of double standard we have here, really. People do not realize how often they in fact break the copyright laws in their everyday life yet they are promptly condemning such actions.

Funny!
freg

I’m downloading music while I watch porn, thats just how I roll.
Frumunda Cheeze

New Zealand? What’d they do, interview a buncha sheep?
MM

People dl a lot less porn nowadays because of sites like mfc
megaporn etc
Ben Ben

As already pointed out, in this day and age if anyone claims they have never committed copyright infringement they either do not know how to use a computer, do not understand how they work or do not know what the phrase “copyright infringement” means.
josh

Unfortunately for the Kiwis, there are no sheep in music or tv, so you’re only left with one option.
ET

@49 HAHA brilliant.

http://www.epictorrents.com
Anonymous

@42

Obvious troll is obvious.
Anonymous

I suspect that people have less strong objections to streaming than downloading because they feel the quality is lower (so somehow that means the owners aren’t being ripped off as much) and likely also are under the impression that the owners are being compensated in some manner, via ad-space or some such.
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PP

@47 Jan 13, 2010 at 22:54 by Anonymous

Off topic:
What a terrible tragedy that struck Haiti today. Its a shame that we filthy thieving pirates could not start a fund of some kind to help out these unfortunate people. Maybe something from one of the Pirate Parties or something, just to prove we are not what the media makes us out to be. Just a thought.

(www.twitter.com/overnetuser)
piratepartyca
I’m so sorry to hear about the situation in Haiti. Donate $5 to Salvation Army relief by texting “haiti” to 45678. http://bit.ly/4Ntt11

[That's for Rogers and Bell cellular customers in Canada only - TF mod]
pp

from article @57 One option, where texting the word “Haiti” to 90999 results in a $10 donation to the Red Cross and a matching fee being applied to the user’s cellphone bill, only works in the United States, Twitter users reported.
Obedient

…..In fact, “theft” is OK as long as it is done by the government.
I am talking specifically about our current tax system, which is nothing short of THEFT!, plain and simple.
rnr

No streaming 1080Porn :(
I’ll stick with downloading.
Genieguy

Streaming copyrighted music, as in for example using spotify..?

Can’t see why that shouldn’t be morally acceptable.
Whatever

The FIRST question with any scientific research, opinion polls and the likes nowadays is:

“Who paid for it ?”

And there may be a lot of companies in between who hide the true identity of their master who wanted a certain result.

There are not only lies, great lies and statistics… add opininion polls and scientific research to it.

There is no reason to take any poll seriously until it’s clear who wanted the poll and how exactly the poll was done (every detail).
Muhammed Goldstein

It’s an interesting occurrence that in the countries where porn has been highly illegal (fundamentalist Muslim governments come to mind) copyright laws are lax — if any such laws exist at all.

The converse also rings true — countries which enforce copyright the hardest generally have the more permissive moral standards.
Cordelia

Can’t stand porn, love filesharing.

I agree with the christian view that porn is addictive and spurs viewers into increased levels of pervertion. Easy for me to say, I am a woman and don’t really understand the male view on this. But the less I see of porn the better, as far as I am concerned.

Do it, with your spouse, don’t watch it. :-)
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Anonymous

@ Cordelia

Its like saying to women either no to nag or to shop.So we’ll not stop
Anonymous

@64

Not all of us have spouses. :(
zod

this is what happens when the poll is carried out in a convent
h33t

yeah a fuked up survey
Anonymous

Wait, did you say something? I’m too busy looking at the picture. :D
Phill

As a side note, many kiwis download television shows.

Television shows that are not due into the country for upwards of a year, if at all due to licensing or no one picking it up here.

If I remember right a couple of the large media has basically said no video/dvd rental here which is also another one.

Then add into the fact that any sort of alternative legal way to obtain media via the net is blocked, again due to geo licensing (one of my biggest peeves).

mix it all together and you get a country of pirates.
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Anonymous

This study is indicative of how people think. They are stupid. :) Most stunning to me is that 6 people out of ten find porn immoral!
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me

I love porn and file sharing equally. Especially file sharing porn. ;-)
Anonymous

The first question I asked myself is who is responsible for this survey, what was the sample group really, what were the questions asked and who was to gain from it.

So Porn is morally acceptable because it so abundant and free whilst music and movie downloads deems a person to be a dark pirate when in fact downloader’s of music and movies spend more money actually buying
Frank

The first question I asked myself is who is responsible for this survey, what was the sample group really, what were the questions asked and who was to gain from it.

Or is it the fact that Porn by people is perceived as being victimless and private so its goota be OK.

So Porn is morally acceptable because it so abundant and free whilst music and movie downloads deems a person to be a dark pirate when in fact downloader’s of music and movies spend more money actually buying
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FreddE

In other words, most Kiwis lie to pollsters about lawbreaking.

Vive la Bittorrent!
jim stein

nz sounds awesome
tONY

I morally frown upon people that DON’T pirate music and movies. Haven’t bought a CD or movie in over 10 years, don’t plan on changing that anytime soon. Cheers!
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Anonymous

Pirates XXX
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TVLinks

Hey guys,

If you want to watch movies or tv shows online, you should use a legal search engine like OVguide or TVLinks:

http://www.tv-links.eu
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gimvle

This article and it’s source are ( to me ) insinuating that the relationship should be reversed, where watching porn is less morally acceptable than piracy of copyrighted works. The number of people that hold that opinion is fortunately declining thus giving rise to the results of this poll saying that almost the majority of people find porn-watching acceptable.

Of course, in a society where public domain is the de facto standard and the stigma associated with porn is gone, this would be no problem at all.
a

lol @ 2
xlr8tor

Porn don’t need subtitles, lol so it’s more “unviversal” to download
xlr8tor

Porn doesn’t need subtitles, lol, so it’s more “universal” to download
Scooby

Kia ora YouTube music videos, kia ora illegal porn!

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Watching Porn Online More Acceptable Than Pirating Music

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