AfterDawn: News

Piracy is caused by lack of choice, says study

According to a new study recently released in the UK, the largest cause of piracy and other copyright infringement is simply, a lack of choice or legal alternatives. The study went as far to show that over 30 percent of UK citizens had downloaded pirated content, or at least plan to do so in the future.

The study, the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey, really only said what many have been saying for years now; legal venues don't have the quality or quantity of the illegal ones.



70 percent of those who had admitted to piracy also agreed that their primary reason for doing so was because “legal sites just don’t have the range of illegal ones”. The same amount of people also agreed that they would purchase the content if what they wanted was available.

Of the respondents who admitted to piracy, 70 percent also suggested that illegal venues were much faster.

Even more interestingly, 68 percent of those studied believed there was little chance they would be caught downloading and understood that many anti-piracy campaigns are more for intimidation.

Read the whole study here, its an interesting read.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 6 Mar 2008 13:53

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• 13 comments

• Hunt720

  Uh Oh..... The RIAA isn't going to like this very much.

  6.3.2008 14:25 #1

• mattkind

  If they want to reduce piracy , they should lower blu ray movies and release them 2 months after they are shown in cinemas and not 6 months like they are now

  6.3.2008 16:24 #2

• akira247

  uk tv is nothing but repetitive tv
  they seem to think we want to watch the same crap thats been seen about a 100 times already
  why cant tv give me what i want to watch,downloading takes time and effort but its better than watching the same program over and over again,spread over 30 channels.
  
  give the public what they want to watch,the programs with the most leechers (TORRENT)TV

  6.3.2008 16:26 #3

• emugamer

  Entertainment is too expensive for me. I will not pay over $30 for a video game. I will not pay over $15 for a movie. I will not pay over $10 for a CD. That is why I only buy used. And if I can't find a game or whatever used for the right price, I just don't buy it. I agree that there needs to be more alternatives. I just bought a PS3 and I'm a big fan of PSN free PS3 downloadable game demos. I've grabbed about 20 of them so far and it's helped me determine that there are about 5 of them that I would buy, 7 of them that I would rent and 8 of them that I wouldn't give the time of day. Now, of the 5 that I would buy, I may be willing to break my $30 limit rule, because I think that they are that good. If the PS2 had something like that going for it, I would probablly own a lot more PS2 games. I'm not sure what I would do if the PS3 was hacked and there was an ISO loader. But I feel that the more legal options there are, the more I would reconsider my actions.
  
  Music is a whole other beast. I only buy what I like and delete what I think is crap. So I've created my own "music demo" program.
  
  Movies....well I honestly can only think of a handful that were worth purchasing after a rental or download.
  
  TV series....I don't care about at all. My trusty DVR lets me skip whatever big business wants me to see.
  
  I think the biggest disconnect between the customer and big business is the moral line they draw and try to convince us to accept. Just because something is illegal, does everyone think it's immoral? (Hey, if I was in Nazi Germany, I have to admit that I would have probably used my home as a safe haven to harbor Jews.) And then there's the punishment fitting the "crime." When corporations sue single mothers and little girls and college students, people lose respect for the law pretty quickly. Then corporations are the ones who seem immoral and corrupt. There is a disconnect between human compassion and the almighty dollar and it's evident in the way consumers are treated - sometimes worse than murderers and rapists.
  
  So piracy is caused by more than just a lack of choice.....it can also be attributed to a lack of respect. I had a tough and sometimes abusive father, and I can tell you that his law meant nothing as I got older, because I had no respect for him.

  6.3.2008 16:48 #4

• vinny13

  I thought it was caused from lack of money :S

  6.3.2008 17:20 #5

• 21Q

  I could have sworn it was that most of middle class America just doesn't have money to spare. Or that we pirates are just really cheap.

  6.3.2008 18:03 #6

• emugamer

  Originally posted by vinny13: I thought it was caused from lack of money :SLOL....that too :-P

  6.3.2008 18:36 #7

• sssharp

  Originally posted by 21Q: I could have sworn it was that most of middle class America just doesn't have money to spare. Or that we pirates are just really cheap.It's a little of both for me.

  6.3.2008 19:40 #8

• nintenut

  ... They needed to do a study to determine that..?

  7.3.2008 01:30 #9

• xSModder

  Exactly. It's just another bull**** tactic for them to keep making money and not abolish the high prices.

  7.3.2008 01:38 #10

• nobrainer

  High prices; global price fixing (region coding(blu-ray) credit card locks); lack of distribution methods; Media hobbled by DRM (thankx sony); Constant mediocre to lacklustre media produced; suing 14 year old kids and college students; lobbying to make civil crimes criminal, so the tax payer picks up the bill; Constant lies and rhetoric output by these corporations and broadcast media lying on their behalf; stealing from artists; payola deals to keep indie bands from air play, if you are not riaa you will not be played, give us your works so we can rip you off.
  
  the list of negative opinions all count towards why piracy happens but at the end of the day its the RIAA that is destroying itself by not changing with the times, gone are the days of the big bucks for these gatekeepers as the interweb is not controlled by you, even though you act as it is, F Off RIAA die a painful death.
  
  
  

  The BPI Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  
  The RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  
  The IFPI Are: The same anti consumer lot as listed above!
  
  The MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX.
  
  How do you stop anti consumer = its easy purchase only second hand media and avoid their propertarian hobbled by DRM hardware! http://www.boycott-riaa.com/

  7.3.2008 03:40 #11

• WierdName

  Originally posted by emugamer: Entertainment is too expensive for me. I will not pay over $30 for a video game. I will not pay over $15 for a movie. I will not pay over $10 for a CD. That is why I only buy used. And if I can't find a game or whatever used for the right price, I just don't buy it. I agree that there needs to be more alternatives. I just bought a PS3 and I'm a big fan of PSN free PS3 downloadable game demos. I've grabbed about 20 of them so far and it's helped me determine that there are about 5 of them that I would buy, 7 of them that I would rent and 8 of them that I wouldn't give the time of day. Now, of the 5 that I would buy, I may be willing to break my $30 limit rule, because I think that they are that good. If the PS2 had something like that going for it, I would probablly own a lot more PS2 games. I'm not sure what I would do if the PS3 was hacked and there was an ISO loader. But I feel that the more legal options there are, the more I would reconsider my actions.
  
  Music is a whole other beast. I only buy what I like and delete what I think is crap. So I've created my own "music demo" program.
  
  Movies....well I honestly can only think of a handful that were worth purchasing after a rental or download.
  
  TV series....I don't care about at all. My trusty DVR lets me skip whatever big business wants me to see.
  
  I think the biggest disconnect between the customer and big business is the moral line they draw and try to convince us to accept. Just because something is illegal, does everyone think it's immoral? (Hey, if I was in Nazi Germany, I have to admit that I would have probably used my home as a safe haven to harbor Jews.) And then there's the punishment fitting the "crime." When corporations sue single mothers and little girls and college students, people lose respect for the law pretty quickly. Then corporations are the ones who seem immoral and corrupt. There is a disconnect between human compassion and the almighty dollar and it's evident in the way consumers are treated - sometimes worse than murderers and rapists.
  
  So piracy is caused by more than just a lack of choice.....it can also be attributed to a lack of respect. I had a tough and sometimes abusive father, and I can tell you that his law meant nothing as I got older, because I had no respect for him.I have to agree with you there. If pirates are treated worse than murderers or rapists, people lose respect for those laws very fast.
  
  I would say another reason people pirate is that the prices of the media is just way to high compared to the value of that media. You can't slap a big price tag on something and expect people to buy it. I remember playing "Roller Coaster Tycoon" in which you have to properly price your rides/attractions or people would just avoid it. It's the same principle, except in this case, people can just go download the product. If prices were reasonable, a fair amount of people would probably go actually buy the media.

  15.3.2008 23:15 #12

• madman91

  Quote:Even more interestingly, 68 percent of those studied believed there was little chance they would be caught downloading and understood that many anti-piracy campaigns are more for intimidation.LOL :)
  
  Epic fail for the RIAA

  21.3.2008 13:31 #13