Sixteen percent of Britons ages 12 and up access online...
Sixteen percent of Britons ages 12 and up access online content illegally, the Office of Communications said Thursday. Its second consumer tracking study into Internet copyright infringement (http://xrl.us/bomwqg) showed no significant changes from the first one last November, it said.…
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The main changes included: (1) Streaming of TV programs rose from 30 percent to 33 percent in the past three months, with overall consumption of online content, including downloading, increasing as a result from 32 percent to 35 percent. (2) Since the first survey, three content types experienced small but important changes. The proportion of consumers of music who downloaded all their tracks for free fell from 72 percent to 69 percent, in favor of a “mix of paid and free” group, which increased from 18 percent to 22 percent. (3) Consumer confusion about the legality of online activity has dropped since November -- when 44 percent of all users over 12 claimed to be either “not particularly confident” or “not at all confident” about what’s legal on the Internet -- to 41 percent. In general, attitudes toward online activities and reasons given for online infringement haven’t changed, Ofcom said. Infringement levels varied by content type, it said. Ten percent of users over 12 consumed at least some music illegally over the three-month period, while 6 percent did so for films. For videogames and computer software the number was 2 percent, for e-books, 1 percent. Across all content categories, copyright violators were more likely to be male and under 35. Music was the most frequently infringed content, followed by TV shows, films and videogames, Ofcom said. Thirty-five percent of those who accessed any content unlawfully claimed to do so via peer-to-peer services, with 20 percent saying they used the unlicensed uTorrent service in the three-month period. The most common reasons given for infringing were because it’s free, convenient and quick. Users who access content illegally said cheaper legal services would encourage them to stop, as would having everything they want available lawfully. Eighteen percent said they'd avoid illegal services if their ISP said it would suspend their Internet access; 12 percent if the ISP threatened to restrict online access; and 11 percent if the provider merely informed them that their account had been used to breach copyright.