The survey revealed a degree of confusion surrounding what content consumers are legally allowed to use on their home computers. Possibly due, at least in part, to a significant amount of national press coverage, 75% of respondents recognise that downloading music from an unofficial file sharing site to a computer is illegal, with similar results for downloading movies (73%) or TV shows (67%). However, once people have a disc in their hand, or a track on their computer, there is greater uncertainty - only 33% believe taking the content from a DVD and putting it onto a computer ("ripping") is unlawful. Once on the computer, only 26% believe copying that content to a portable device is illegal. These activities are currently illegal in the UK (in most cases), at least in theory, although the Government is currently considering whether to introduce a "format shifting" exception in line with the recommendation in the Gowers' Report.

Copyright owners continue to face an uphill battle to persuade consumers that rules on content use (enforced by Digital Rights Management ("DRM")) are "fair". However, it is clear that consumers are also still confused about the purpose and effect of DRM. Whilst a third of respondents support DRM to protect content from people who haven't paid for it, 71% of people surveyed believe that, once they have bought some content, they should have the freedom to transfer that content between all of their personal devices. At the same time, only 12% think that once they have bought something they SHOULD be entitled to give it away to their friends. Only 8% of respondents support the use of DRM to control what happens to content once they have paid for it.

Even with heightened illegal downloading, consumers are not concerned about getting caught and the main reason for not illegally downloading is moral guilt, with 34% of respondents believing it's wrong, with the second most common reason being the consumer's desire for quality authorised files (33%), this reason being especially common among 16 and 17 year olds.