Half of UK People Want Tougher Laws to Prevent Unlawful Internet Downloads

Media law group Wiggin has released its latest annual 2012 Digital Entertainment Survey, which conducted an online survey of 2,500 UK respondents (“representative of the national demographic“) and discovered how 53% agreed that the internet “requires more regulation” to prevent broadband ISP customers from “downloading unauthorised content“. But only a minority were found to engage in internet piracy.

Furthermore 64% agreed or strongly agreed that British law should be applied online in the same way as it is offline, though there were huge differences between how men and women voted. On average 44% of men agreed with the above position, which rises to 60% for women. Elsewhere almost six in ten consumers (58%) believe that internet content should be regulated in the same way as TV programmes.

However, despite the calls for more regulation, just 6% of people admitted to making “Regular” downloads of unauthorised / pirated films or tv progs via linking and hosting sites. This falls to 5% for file sharing (P2P) sites and it’s an almost identical situation for music content too.

2012 Digital Entertainment Survey (PDF)
http://www.wiggin.co.uk/images/wiggin/files/publications/des2012_np.pdf