Four in Five Admit To Online Piracy

Added: (Thu Mar 18 2010)

Pressbox (Press Release) - A study has found that 82% of people admit to downloading files illegally online, with just 11% suggesting that they would never do so.

Following a large number of web searches for ‘free music’, the UK’s leading discount website commissioned research to look at British attitudes towards online piracy.

According to a study by www.MyVoucherCodes.co.uk of 1,607 people, 82% of people that use the internet have downloaded a file illegally in the past.

24% admit to having watched streamed movies online, whilst one in three, 32%, said they had downloaded films whilst they’d still been at the cinema.

Of those that said they had downloaded files illegally, 35% said they had used torrent websites, whilst 78% admitted to using peer to peer programs. 52% said they’d tried streaming illegal video and music content.

The survey found that men are more likely to download illegal files, with 85% saying they had, compared to 79% of women.

When asked, “What are your thoughts with regards to illegal downloading?”, nearly half, 47%, said they didn’t think of it as crime, whilst 11% said they would never do so. 64% said they did so to save money, whilst 26% admitted to being ‘too impatient’ to wait for films and music to be officially released.

MP3s are the most downloaded files, according to the study, with three quarters, 76%, of respondents admitting to having downloaded music illegally, whilst 71% of people admitted to having streamed or downloaded movies online.

The most downloaded files, included streamed files, are as follows, by the percentage of people that admitted to having downloaded them:

1. MP3s – 76%
2. Movies – 71%
3. Videogames – 68%
4. Software – 65%
5. TV shows – 60%
6. Sports – 57%
7. Copyrighted images – 53%
8. Databases – 21%

8% of respondents said they’d sold content that they had illegally downloaded.

Mark Pearson, managing director of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk had the following to say,

“Piracy is a hot topic, especially following the legal issues last year surrounding torrent website The Pirate Bay. We decided to look further into the issue when one of our staff members noticed a large amount of searches related to finding free music online.

“The fact that illegal files are so easily, freely and readily available online is undoubtedly the reason it’s so popular amongst web users. Government and internet service provider initiatives against piracy seem to be falling flat in honesty, and if we’re to combat illegal downloading, the issues of availability and repercussions needs to be seriously looked at.”

LINK http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk

ENDS

For more information, please contact Rich Leigh, 10 Yetis Public Relations Agency on 01452 348 211, rich@10yetis.co.uk or on Twitter @goodandbadpr

EDITORS NOTES
Mark Pearson, MD of MyVoucherCodes is a regular media contributor regarding online shopping and the credit crunch. At 29, his personal worth is more than £30 million. Mark was previously a trainee chef working for Gordon Ramsay at Claridges, London.

MyVoucherCodes has had sales exceeding £481m in the last year

Consumer savings on online shopping via MyVoucherCodes.co.uk up from £28m in 2008 to £52m in 2009.

MyVoucherCodes is the UK’s most popular discount site.