Internet Piracy – 6.52 Million UK People Downloaded Illegal Content

The Government’s Intellectual Property Office has today published its 8th study into the extent of online copyright infringement by broadband ISP and mobile users, which estimates that 15% of UK Internet users aged 12+ (6.525 million people) had downloaded at least one item of “illegal” online content (unchanged from 2017).

The new research, which is based on responses from 5,034 people via various different forms of communication (online, face-to-face etc.), noted that the levels of infringement varied significantly by content type. The highest levels of infringement for all internet users was recorded for TV shows (23%), sports content (21%) and software (20%). Software infringement has declined sharply from 26% last year but most have barely changed.

Looking at infringers of any of the six key content types, those who downloaded or streamed/accessed content “illegally” were skewed towards people aged under 35 (making up 66% of all infringers). It was also slightly skewed towards men (58%). As usual the top reasons for infringing remained largely similar to those given in 2017, with 44% of respondents simply saying because “it is free.”

The market’s largest broadband ISPs are already trying to get a grip on the problem of internet piracy by blocking websites involved in copyright infringement (i.e. after a court order). On top of that they’ve also been sending warning emails to those suspected by copyright holders of engaging in such activity (these are just “educational” alerts and don’t contain any threats). However it doesn’t look as if the latter is likely to have a big impact.

In terms of what would deter pirates from infringing, the study noted that cost (“if legal services were cheaper” 22%) and a lack of clarity (“if it was clearer what is legal and what isn’t” 21%) were top of the list.
Meanwhile legal (18%) and timely (16%) availability of content also remain important considerations for discouraging infringers.

However 1 in 10 claim to be “hardcore” infringers who say there is nothing that would make them stop.