UK piracy rife among young says survey

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Almost half of young Britons own pirate or counterfeit goods, according to research to be published by pollsters YouGov. They say it reveals "the emergence of a pirate generation" who feel more able to justify buying pirated goods such as software, CDs and DVDs. The internet, affordability of CD writers and the abundance of traders selling counterfeit goods were cited as the greatest factors contributing to the trend, throwing into sharp focus the problems faced by music groups in particular. Companies such as EMI have claimed to be slowly winning the war against piracy through a twin process of education and litigation, coupled with technological improvements to make piracy more difficult.


Today's research was carried out for the Business Software Alliance. Regional manager Siobhan Caroll said: "It is of particular concern that respect of copyright seems to be falling steadily, generation by generation, and piracy is becoming ubiquitous at work and play."
Pirate copies of many films such as Spider-Man 2 and I Robot are often available before they reach cinemas. Previous research suggests the United Kingdom market for piracy and counterfeit goods was worth £10billion (E15bn) in 2002, with the Treasury losing around £1billion in tax revenue.

YouGov found that 44pc of people aged 18-29 possess pirate or counterfeit goods, falling to 28pc for 30-50 year olds and 17pc for the over 50s. Of the 18- to 29-year-olds, 28pc never thought about copyright laws and 45pc said fines of double the value of the legal equivalent were needed to deter them from buying.

When asked to rate the acceptability of certain actions - where 0 is totally unacceptable and 10 totally acceptable - 18- to 29-year-olds gave a mean acceptability rating of 5.03 for downloading material from pirate websites, compared with 0.68 for shoplifting from small retailers.