The survey carried out by UMR Research shows a gulf between those who consider online porn browsing acceptable and those who download films and movies.
An survey carried out by UMR Research revealed that watching pornography online is considered far more morally acceptable than downloading music and films illegitimately via file sharing networks.
The survey, which
TorrentFreak reveals as being carried out across 1,000 New Zealanders, reveals that 41 percent of respondents believed it was morally acceptable to watch pornography on the Internet - which contrasts with just 18 percent who can live with the guilt of downloading copyright music without paying for it on their conscience.
An even smaller group, at just 13 percent, believed that it was acceptable to download a film illegally - significantly lower than the 18 percent which believed it was fine to both watch pornography and hide their activities from their spouse or partner, lying if necessary to keep their secret safe.
While the results of the survey - which, granted, uses far too small a sample size to guarantee any kind of statistical accuracy - show that the vast majority questioned are willing to keep on the right side of the copyright lobbies, an interesting figure to come out of the research is the difference between
downloading content and
streaming content: while just 13 percent of respondents felt OK with downloading a copyright TV show, 31 percent didn't see anything wrong with streaming the same copyright content via a site like YouTube.
While file sharing is getting attention from both lobby groups and the
government at the moment, streaming is something which is less profitable to police: although organisations such as the RIAA and MPAA can fight to have copyright content removed from video streaming services like YouTube, they fight a target with much bigger pockets and a stronger reason to see their case heard in court than if they pursue individuals for sharing content on peer-to-peer networks. Whether the lack of legal action against such streaming sites - and associated press coverage - is responsible for the gulf between 'downloading' and 'streaming' the self-same infringing content isn't known, but is certainly something that those fighting for copyright holders' rights should be looking into.
Do consider downloading copyright content without permission morally acceptable, or are you just surprised to see so many of those surveyed willing to admit to a bit of midnight grot browsing? Share your thoughts over in
the forums.
44 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyThis....
Andy
Sure, if you want.
Yeah, but then people will know how nasty you're willing to go...
But I think in the minds of people, if the content is available for streaming from somewhere like YouTube, then they think that it must be OK, otherwise it would be removed. Downloading is more obviously 'wrong'.
+1
also, when streaming, your not hosting, when filesharing, you are.
If it WOULD come to a process, you could be accused of stealing 1 copy (the one you streamed/saw). When you hosted a file (sharing) you'll be accused of stealing thousands.
The damage would be appropriate.
"The Midnight Grotto" ? Never heared that one before...:D
By disconnecting the pr0n HDD when not in use? ;)
Truecrypt :D
Lmao 'billions of dollars and man hours in development, and this is what it gets used for :p. I'd love to see a survey of how many people only use encryption for their pr0n.
Win xD
Who cares about what new zealanders think?
I don't :)
now porn sites :) they let me watch whatever I want, where ever I want when ever I want, now thats the model that will succeed payed or free and Boxee looks to be leading the way
lol
+1
ha
The number of music videos and just random clips pulled because of a song in it is astronomical. I've stopped even uploading my music videos to YouTube because they just get pulled down. You can stream the ENTIRE Advent Children movie but you make one music video and get slapped with a take down? It's bullshit.
Music videos / AMV's are fair use. No money, no profits, no nothing. Until the RIAA / MPAA AND the streaming services pull their heads out, nothing will change ever. Streaming isn't stealing because you aren't keeping a copy. (If you download a YouTube video, you're downloading, and this would be illegal.)
Soon artists will realize they don't need a record label and just self-release on their own website. I bet you'll see a about 20% less pirating, but a lot less bitching by those who do pay because it funds the artist directly. And artists might get less snotty.
Or someone will create the Steam platform of the music industry. (Or hell, Steam could branch out there.)
/rant
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8459898.stm
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/13/youtube-vevo-overtake-myspace-music/
This is why unauthorised content is taken down. If you want to watch sony videos on you tube, you can very easily, just go to the Vevo channel on you tube..
http://www.youtube.com/user/vevo
You can watch Kings Of Leon, and they are a sony band.
You can't watch HULU there? That is f-ed up.
agreed! +1
I don't know about other countries but in Denmark the consensus apparently is that 1,000 samples is the exact minimum needed in order to achieve a correct diverse demographic statistic.
I'd just like to know whether the quote is the opinion of Gareth or truly a factual matter?
Thanks mkay.
Even if one accepts (I don't) that 1000 people can represent the 6 million inhabitants of Denmark, clearly the number required to represent however many billion internet users there are would have to be correspondingly larger, and selected with some regard to location (rather than all being from one country).
I believe the general rule is that as the size of the population increases, the percentage of people that need to be sampled to achieve a certain level of statistical accuracy decreases, so the required sample size doesn't scale linearly with increasing population (i.e. for a population of 1000 you may need to sample 20%, while for a population of 1 million you may only need to sample 0.2%).
You're correct, the number needed scales with the square root so the percentage goes down but the actual value still increases.
Seeing as New Zealand has around 4 million inhabitants and they've talked to 1000 people I believe that they've indeed reached critical mass for a broad representation of the population.
The whole clip is worth watching, but for my reaction to your qoute, you can skip to 5 minutes :D
Hahaha that is awesome!
This isn't surprising as watching porn is legal and filesharing is illegal. Or maybe New Zealanders just like porn! I'm very surprised by how few would think it's OK to download a TV show! I wonder if the same people think it's OK to save the TV show onto a Sky+, TIVO etc then burn to a DVD.
Also your last paragraph needs finishing: "Do you consider downloading copyrighted content without permission morally acceptable..."
Do people really watch the same Pr0n clip more than once? (Like it's some Oscar winning performance)