James Delahunty
31 Jan 2007 11:09
Despite many anti-piracy efforts in the United States, piracy of movies and other types of digital content is still rising sharply, despite claims that litigation against file sharers is "working". The Solutions Research Group has collected the latest available data on P2P file sharing and has come to a startling find about how many people are actually downloading. Specifically, those using P2P file sharing system doubled in figures from 2005 to 2006.
One in five U.S. citizens have pirated a major film and two thirds of them have downloaded a film at least monthly. 80% of overall movie downloaders use so called "unauthorized" services to get their movies for free, as opposed to using a legal solution to get them. This bad news for the two major trade bodies, the RIAA and MPAA, who haver both resorted to legal action against thousands of U.S. citizens.
We reported some days ago that most Americans do not believe that downloading is a serious offense at all. "There is a Robin Hood effect. Most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don't think of movie downloading as a big deal," said study director Kaan Yigit.
Source:
vnunet.net