The European Union Office for Intellectual Property seeks to analyze piracy among young Europeans. In a study carried out on 22,000 people, the Office scrutinized the behavior of young people vis-à-vis illegal downloading.
The rate of piracy among young people varies greatly from country to country: in fact, the Maltese download more than the Germans. But this rate also varies according to their level of education. The more they go to university, the more young Europeans pirate.
Why hack?
The study by the European Office seeks to understand young people’s illegal downloading habits in order to better mitigate the phenomenon. In a survey on intellectual property, renewed every three years, the Office surveys young European citizens aged between 15 and 24 years. Of the 22,000 surveyed, 33% admit to having pirated something during the year. This indicates that most young people in Europe therefore do not pirate anything. Those concerned justify their illegal downloads by invoking the costs of streaming services and the availability of the content they wish to view.
The young people interviewed mention that the proliferation of streaming services increases the costs tenfold: to have access to a wide variety of content, you have to take out several subscriptions. So they prefer to turn to illegal streaming in addition to their subscription. In addition, 21% of them admit to having accidentally pirated, which seems to indicate that they are unfamiliar with the legislation around free downloading and streaming on the internet.
More studies, more hacking
The study shows that the most educated young people pirate more than the others. We find that 28% of respondents with a university degree have hacked something intentionally during the year, compared to only 15% of those with a secondary education diploma.
Similarly, students who have an income alongside their studies hack more than those who do not. This unexpected result could be because non-working students may be supported more by their parents (including streaming subscriptions), while others have to support themselves and therefore have a tighter budget. In any case, young Europeans are not worried about not being in good standing: only 36% are afraid of being punished by law.
On the same subject :
Streaming: Is piracy killing Netflix?
Source : Torrent Freak
51