The 2020 installment of Creative Content Australia‘s annual study suggests that Covid lockdowns increased piracy that year. Paradoxically, consumers say piracy is socially unacceptable, and yet it’s a social norm. 85% of consumers surveyed knew that piracy and pirate consumption increases cybersecurity risks.
Research was conducted online by Sycamore Research with 1,232 adults and 627 teens during the third quarter of 2020.
Highlights:
- 8% of adults and 11% of teens surveyed said that they had never accessed pirate sources until the Covid era
- The consumption of illegal video was up just 1% overall, but use by persistant pirates who download or stream illegally at least once a week increased significantly
- There’s a strong perception that downloading is theft: “It’s stealing but I’m not a thief.”
- Across all age groups, at least half of those who consume illegal content support the active blocking of pirate sites
- When consumers encounter a blocked site, 81% used search engines to find the same illegal content, 67% went to legal services, nearly half activated VPN access, and a third change DNS settings to Open DNS.
- Consumers want to delegate piracy restrictions and anti-piracy responsibility to broadband access providers, and believe that providers should be the ones penalized for it
Access the report from Creative Content Australia, 2020 Australian Piracy Behaviours and Attitudes.
Why it matters
While many observers define ‘piracy’ as copyright violation through the distribution or re-distribution of content without rights to do so, this report classifies consumers who access illegal sources to be pirates as well.
Creative Content Australia provides a comprehensive resource for anti-piracy stakeholders worldwide. This study provides a shapshot in time that can help policymakers, service providers, programmers and consumer advocates establish priorities.
