32% of All US Adults Watch Pirated Content

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32% of All US Adults Watch Pirated Content

Nearly a third of all US adults admit to having downloaded or streamed pirated movies or TV-shows, a new survey from Irdeto has found. Even though many are aware that watching pirated content is not permitted, a large number of pirates are particularly hard to deter.

Despite the availability of many legal services, piracy remains rampant througout the United States.

This is one of the main conclusions of research conducted by anti-piracy firm Irdeto, which works with prominent clients including Twentieth Century Fox and Starz.

Through YouGov, the company conducted a representative survey of over 1,000 respondents which found that 32 percent of all US adults admit to streaming or downloading pirated video content.

These self-confessed pirates are interested in a wide variety of video content. TV-shows and movies that still play in theaters are on the top of the list for many, with 24 percent each, but older movies, live sports and Netflix originals are mentioned as well.

The data further show that the majority of US adults (69%) know that piracy is illegal. Interestingly, this also means that a large chunk of the population believes that they’re doing nothing wrong.

While the major copyright holders often stress that piracy results in massive revenue losses, the pirates themselves are not particularly bothered by this. In fact, 39 percent say that claimed losses don’t impact their download habits.

According to Lawrence Low, Irdeto’s Vice President of Business Development and Sales, piracy does more than just financial damage. It also limits the resources content creators have to make new content, which may ultimately lead to less choice.

“Piracy deters content creators from investing in new content, impacting the creative process and providing consumers with less choice,” Low says.

“It is becoming increasingly important for operators and movie studios to educate consumers on the tactics employed by pirates and to further promote innovative offerings that allow consumers to legally acquire content,” he adds.

This insight is not new of course. Over the past few years, various copyright groups have put a spotlight on legal services, even targeting pirates directly with educational copyright alerts.

However, for now that doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect. Piracy remains rampant, especially among younger people. Previously a similar survey revealed that among millennials, more than two-thirds admit to having downloaded or streamed pirated content.

I would question these figures. Mainly because the copyright industry pays to have thse surverys done and they usually come out before legislation is proposed so that it can be used as information ammunition to support their lobbying. If you've been living under a rock every since the internet came to be popular, the copyright industry has waged a war against what it proclaims as 'pirates'.

The copyright industry has been scared of any new technology that came down the pipes threatening their monopoly. The tools they use varies from cherry picking which reports to see published to attempting to kill off new technologies that are fixing to be marketed, such as the DAT tape that suffered a death on arrival to the market over fears of 'copying that floppy' misguided viewpoints.

The Beatmax tape war was one such that they lost in court. Only after it was lost did the copyright industry find a whole new market to sell to, eventually rivialing their theater income. Several independant studies have shown that these supposed pirates are their best customers, being far more involved in their products than the average consumer. Meaning that they often attempt to sue their best customers and then can't figure out why they are supposedly loosing sales (which is another red herring).
 

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Not me

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is that all.?.
I download Lucifer every week because it doesn't screen here...