32% Of All U.S. Adults Watch Pirated Content

Megalith

Megalith

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Anyone can tell you that piracy is pretty rampant—but just how many people are illegally downloading and streaming content? We may now have a decent idea of that, as a YouGov survey has revealed a third of all U.S. adults do so. But considering that poll was spearheaded by an anti-piracy firm, I can only wonder if it has been skewed in any way…

Through YouGov, the company conducted a representative survey of over 1,000 respondents which found that 32 percent of all US adults admit to streaming or downloading pirated video content. These self-confessed pirates are interested in a wide variety of video content. TV-shows and movies that still play in theaters are on the top of the list for many, with 24 percent each, but older movies, live sports and Netflix originals are mentioned as well. The data further show that the majority of US adults (69%) know that piracy is illegal. Interestingly, this also means that a large chunk of the population believes that they’re doing nothing wrong.
 
Agreed, as we all know surveys are accurate and people don't lie about such things.

“Piracy deters content creators from investing in new content, impacting the creative process and providing consumers with less choice,” Low says.

Yes, I have noticed that the creative process seems to have withered in movies lol :p
 
I know a guy who's very religious and he's typically pushing the idea you should be a law abiding citizen and do good in the world. He's always posting religious stuff on social media and always going on about how you should help others, be righteous, etc, etc... Now, I'm also somewhat religious (I go to church, pray, etc.). So I'm not bashing being religious by any means. The thing is, this guy has it in his head it's perfectly fine to download dozens of pirated movies, TV shows, etc... He even encourages people to do it and doesn't think there is anything at all wrong with it. When you get down to it, stealing is stealing. (Although I'm sure a lot of people don't see it that way.) I'm just mentioning this because here you have a guy who's your average joe, and who is clearly a decent human being... but for some reason he has it in his head that downloading movies illegally is perfectly okay and acceptable. Just goes to show the outlook people have on this sort of thing.
 
SO let me get this correct.......

In a *random* survey of 1000 adults.... From a company these 1000 people had no clue about... 320 ADMITTED to pirating content?

What was the question? ------ "Do you watch movies and content online?"
 
Axehandler said:
SO let me get this correct.......

In a *random* survey of 1000 adults.... From a company these 1000 people had no clue about... 320 ADMITTED to pirating content?

What was the question? ------ "Do you watch movies and content online?"
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More like:

Select the option that best describes your method of watching movies:

a) Netflix
b) hulu
c) cable tv provider
d) movie theaters
e) free streaming or downloaded content
d) other

so they probably put E and D and grouped them as pirates.
 
SolarisGuru said:
I'm just mentioning this because here you have a guy who's your average joe, and who is clearly a decent human being... but for some reason he has it in his head that downloading movies illegally is perfectly okay and acceptable.
Click to expand...

Just doing his part to defund the evil Hollywood types :p
 
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Well, that depends on how one defines "pirated". If they've paid for a movie on DVD or bluray, and want to watch it on their computer without having to find the disk, they just might download the file rather than ripping it themselves. These idiots would consider that "pirated", even though the user had already bought the rights to watch it, and just decided they didn't want to watch it in that format. They've paid their compensation to the artist and the producers to watch or listen to their media. What should it matter what format is used? The a--holes just want to have people under their thumb.
 
Darunion said:
More like:

Select the option that best describes your method of watching movies:

a) Netflix
b) hulu
c) cable tv provider
d) movie theaters
e) free streaming or downloaded content
d) other

so they probably put E and D and grouped them as pirates.
Click to expand...

I would say this is probably pretty accurate. I have to answer e because I watch quite a bit of twitch streams. So I would likely be grouped as pirated content even though none of what I watch is pirated. With the popularity of services like netflix and amazon prime, I literally don't know anyone who pirates anything anymore. There is little reason too beyond "Because I can" and those people aren't going to be converted into paying customers ever.
 
First, just let me say up front that I only stream or download content from legitimate sources that are either free or I have paid for. Now with that out of the way, I once had someone tell me that watching pirated shows was the same as sneaking into a theater or shoplifting a DVD from Walmart. So I asked him if it was stealing when I watched a new movie with him at his house. He said, "No, that was different - I paid for it." Then I pointed out that I had not paid for it, and now that I had seen it, I would not be buying it either (it was only meh). "Well, they expect that more than one person will watch a specific disc" was his answer. So then I asked if it was OK to invite 5 people over to watch it. How about 10? How many "free" uses per disc was allowed? He didn't have a good answer for me and said I was just picking nits. Maybe I was. But the point I was trying to make is that the issue is not as cut and dried as he stated. He was also fine with making digital copies of his discs for "backup" purposes. But the industry would insist that is illegal. What if I put my "backup" copies on my personal Plex server, just to make it easier to access them from anywhere in my house? If I get a movie on DVD or Bluray from Netflix and don't have time to watch it right away, is it OK to rip it to my hard drive to watch later (and delete) so that I can send the disc back to unblock the (shared) disk queue? Lots of thorny questions, and I'm sure you'll get different answers depending on who you ask.
 
“Piracy deters content creators from investing in new content, impacting the creative process and providing consumers with less choice,” Low says.
Click to expand...

Piracy proves there's a market for content that needs to be made available at a reasonable price within a reasonable time frame. It means, if you're a theater, step up and make it a premium experience as such that I want to go see it. Taking out 20 minutes of previews would be a step in the right direction. And stop equating piracy with lost revenue as many watch content they never intended to buy.

SolarisGuru said:
The thing is, this guy has it in his head it's perfectly fine to download dozens of pirated movies, TV shows, etc... He even encourages people to do it and doesn't think there is anything at all wrong with it. When you get down to it, stealing is stealing. (Although I'm sure a lot of people don't see it that way.) I'm just mentioning this because here you have a guy who's your average joe, and who is clearly a decent human being... but for some reason he has it in his head that downloading movies illegally is perfectly okay and acceptable. Just goes to show the outlook people have on this sort of thing.
Click to expand...

I think it is too. It's not my fault the studios, content creators, license holders, and distributors can't get it together to take full advantage of the technology. No outdated law is going to change my mind. Yes, they need compensation. So they need to work with the technology to get it. Trying to make me feel bad for their failure isn't going to work out well for them.
 
I always find it funny how every year it seems the entertainment industry / movie industry (and anti piracy companies) cry "piracy is killing us" and every year they seem to post bigger and bigger profits.

At this point crying pirate seems to me to be a knee jerk reaction from a bunch of jerks on their knees.....
 
Everyone commits piracy at some point in their lives, there's just too many opportunities created by dumb distribution agreements. And the ease of casual piracy via Youtube.

That, or overpriced TV series sets. Movies are usually pretty reasonably priced.
 
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SolarisGuru, I hear you but experience tells me that 1 in 5 religious people are religious because they believe in God's forgiveness and pray their transgressions away. My experience also tells me that you sound like an honest Christian. Your friend, not so much. It sounds to me like he believes in god and Karma, and as we know, Karma is a bitch.
 
Megalith said:
The data further show that the majority of US adults (69%) know that piracy is illegal. Interestingly, this also means that a large chunk of the population believes that they’re doing nothing wrong.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about this conclusion or how the conclusion is framed.

It's interesting that 32% admit to pirating content and 69% know that it's illegal, and that these two add up to 101% +/- whatever.

But how and what conclusions you draw from this could suggest different things.

For the quoted statement to be true, a good part of the 32% that pirate must fall outside of the 69% that know it's illegal to do so.

I say this because If almost all of the 32% that pirate are from the 69% that know it's illegal, then almost all the pirates know that they are doing something that's illegal and just don't care enough to follow the law.

So if the quoted statement is true, then it strongly suggests that of the 69% that know it is illegal to pirate, most fall into the law abiding non-pirating masses and most of the pirating is being done by people who are not aware that they are doing something wrong.

Or am I confusing the idea that illegal does not equal wrongful ?

ie ... I know pirating is illegal but I don't think it's wrong so I am going to do it anyway ?
 
PaulP said:
First, just let me say up front that I only stream or download content from legitimate sources that are either free or I have paid for. Now with that out of the way, I once had someone tell me that watching pirated shows was the same as sneaking into a theater or shoplifting a DVD from Walmart. So I asked him if it was stealing when I watched a new movie with him at his house. He said, "No, that was different - I paid for it." Then I pointed out that I had not paid for it, and now that I had seen it, I would not be buying it either (it was only meh). "Well, they expect that more than one person will watch a specific disc" was his answer. So then I asked if it was OK to invite 5 people over to watch it. How about 10? How many "free" uses per disc was allowed? He didn't have a good answer for me and said I was just picking nits. Maybe I was. But the point I was trying to make is that the issue is not as cut and dried as he stated. He was also fine with making digital copies of his discs for "backup" purposes. But the industry would insist that is illegal. What if I put my "backup" copies on my personal Plex server, just to make it easier to access them from anywhere in my house? If I get a movie on DVD or Bluray from Netflix and don't have time to watch it right away, is it OK to rip it to my hard drive to watch later (and delete) so that I can send the disc back to unblock the (shared) disk queue? Lots of thorny questions, and I'm sure you'll get different answers depending on who you ask.
Click to expand...


Paul, why go through all this when it is covered by the law. It doesn't matter if you are alone, there are 5 or 50 viewers, the law says what is legal and what isn't. You don't need to make up scenarios and guess, just go look it up.
 
Shotglass01 said:
..... And stop equating piracy with lost revenue as many watch content they never intended to buy............
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Your so right, cause it's not illegal to rob a bank and steal all the bonds from the safety deposit boxes cause I was never going to buy any bonds to begin with.
 
lcpiper said:
Your so right, cause it's not illegal to rob a bank and steal all the bonds from the safety deposit boxes cause I was never going to buy any bonds to begin with.
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And furthermore, stop trying to equate physical world with digital world. Not the same at all.
 
Icpiper it might be a little more like, walked in to a bank and photo copied a bunch of bonds and 3D scanned a bunch of items in safety deposit boxes to 3D print later. Nothing is taken, only a copy of everything is taken. The copy might be high quality but, is rarely mistaken as the original.

i dont see the content of media the same as a physical object.
 
gesicht said:
Icpiper it might be a little more like, walked in to a bank and photo copied a bunch of bonds and 3D scanned a bunch of items in safety deposit boxes to 3D print later. Nothing is taken, only a copy of everything is taken. The copy might be high quality but, is rarely mistaken as the original.

i dont see the content of media the same as a physical object.
Click to expand...

Great analogy man, cause it sure ain't illegal to make reproductions of bonds or currency :joyful:

Perhaps you'll be able convince yourself those are not real bars around your bed and that's not really Bubba's proud member up your poop-shoot.
 
Dullard said:
Damn, that's some fucked up logic there.
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Not so much. Available or not, there's plenty of stuff I've seen out there I would never buy. That is unless it was already included in a service.

lcpiper said:
Your so correct. Being an ass in the digital world doesn't make me an ass in real life, not at all.
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Equating physical to digital is exactly what's killing them. I think it's absolutely insane that, with the tech today, a movie hits a theater on any given Friday then hits DVD/BL 3 months later, then hits streaming services after all that. All I can say is 'good luck.'
 
Well, if you consider ripping and watching DvD/BR discs you own as 'pirating' ... then 100% of all the movies I watch are 'pirated'.
 
I guess I'm old I haven't used anything since Napster was a thing. I don't buy keys for games either, I want the developer to get the money. Now I may wait and pay 1/2 price after 6 months but they still get the money.
 
Shotglass01 said:
Not so much. Available or not, there's plenty of stuff I've seen out there I would never buy. That is unless it was already included in a service.



Equating physical to digital is exactly what's killing them. I think it's absolutely insane that, with the tech today, a movie hits a theater on any given Friday then hits DVD/BL 3 months later, then hits streaming services after all that. All I can say is 'good luck.'
Click to expand...


You think the money they make by controlling the release dates of movies in different formats is insane?

I watched Fury in the theaters cause it was the first time ever that a real Tiger I tank had ever been used in a major film ever and because it promised to be a decent film. I also bought the Blu-ray for much the same reasons along with the additional one, that I could watch it any time I felt "nostalgic" for seeing the combat sequence with that Tiger in it.

Now if that film had been a simultaneous release in all formats, I can't say for sure that I would have gone to the theater if I could have just taken the Blu-ray home and watched it on my plasma screen there. I might have, but I might not have. And those are exactly the profits the industry wants to protect. How can you think that is insane? It's perfectly sane. You may think it's greedy, but I don't understand why you would think it's insane.
 
lcpiper said:
You think the money they make by controlling the release dates of movies in different formats is insane?

Now if that film had been a simultaneous release in all formats, I can't say for sure that I would have gone to the theater if I could have just taken the Blu-ray home and watched it on my plasma screen there. I might have, but I might not have. And those are exactly the profits the industry wants to protect. How can you think that is insane? It's perfectly sane. You may think it's greedy, but I don't understand why you would think it's insane.
Click to expand...

Cause that's just not how the youngins are going to do it. We're the dying generation.
 
Shotglass01 said:
Cause that's just not how the youngins are going to do it. We're the dying generation.
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Hmmm, maybe, ..may be.

I suppose it wouldn't be the first time they did something I thought crazy. But you know, old'uns like ourselves ain't dead yet and I have more years ahead of me with more leasure time then ever ahead of me then I have ever had in my life. I think I am still a force to be counted on in the market place, yes sir I do.
 
this wouldnt be suprising but also the survery is likely not that accurate either.
 
The research was commissioned by Irdeto and conducted online from December 29, 2016 – January 3, 2017 by YouGov. Total sample size was 1,190 US adults (aged 18+). The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (aged 18+).
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https://irdeto.com/news-and-events/...enue-damage-piracy-causes-media-industry.html

In regards to the most popular pirated content, the survey found an even split between consumers who prefer to pirate movies and TV shows. 24% of consumers who watch pirated content are most interested in watching TV series. An additional 24% of respondents are most interested in pirated movies that are currently showing in theaters. The survey also found that consumers are interested in pirating DVD and Blu-ray movies (18%), live sports (10%) and OTT original content from Netflix, Hulu, iTunes and others (9%).
Click to expand...


In addition, the survey found that when told that pirated video content can result in studios losing money, meaning they cannot invest in creating content, 39% of consumers said that this knowledge has no effect on the amount of pirated video content they want to watch. Even more concerning is that only 19% of respondents said that the financial damage caused by piracy would stop them from watching pirated content altogether.
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TLDR: "f**k those rich assholes in hollywood"
 
since assentially all porn is pirated, this number is likely closer to 90% of computer connected adults under age 60.
 
A guy watches a video that was illegally downloaded, and he's watched pirated content. Even if that was the only one he watched, and it was given to him by a friend.
A guy that downloads every episode of 10 different sitcoms, every theatrical movie, every BR release - given the same title and he's watched pirated content.

I know the statistics would be difficult to come by, but there has to be a better way to identify people.

You're a pirate because you watched a leaked video on YouTube before it was taken down.
 
Its way higher then that... and it serves them right.

People have always been pirates... I still have a box of mix tapes somewhere.

I pirate stuff all the time and I don't feel bad about it one bit. I still pay for my Netflix even if I could pirate all their content because its super convenient and they are worth supporting. They charge a reasonable fee for the service they provide.

I buy 10-20 blu discs a year for movies that are worth owning. Often I have already seen those films in a theater and or a pirated copy.

Bottom line I pay for quality content... and services that make my life easier. I pirate tons of content... spending money on some of it after the fact (in disc purchases). Most of the content I pirate I pirate because its FAR FAR easier to pirate it then obtain it "legally"... its not like there is a blockbuster next door anymore, I am not paying my cable company 8-9 bucks to rent it for a day in shitty stream quality on my cable box, and with the quality of most new content I am not going down to wal mart and dropping 20-30 bucks on a disc version of the latest misadventures of adam sandler or some other hollywood boob. :)

If the content creators (music, film, television) haven't figured out what it takes to get money out of peoples pockets in a way they don't regret at this point... its their own fault.
 
When you have laws that are unfair, you're going to have mass disobedience. The DMCA is one of those laws, and it's pretty much agreed upon by the vast majority of the population that it was only created to enrich one group, over another. Like traffic laws that drivers see as simply recommendations, the copyright laws are currently seen as ways that the content owning corporations use to get rich by finding creative ways to take money from the rest of us. Technicically I'm a pirate because I downloaded songs in digital format. Doesn't matter that I own the LP's, cassettes and CD's of the same songs and VHS and DVD copies of the same movies that I found digital versions of to download. To the MPAA and the RIAA, I'm a theif because they didn't get to charge me every time, as to them, each version is a different seperate sellable item in and of itself.

Piracy is close to 100%. The MPAA and RIAA see every instance as lost revanue that they should be paid for.

It's kind of like when we were kids; one yells because they don't want the other one looking at them, as if the sight of themselves is their property and they get to choose who can see them, or if the viewers should have to pay to look. Actually, it sounds more like something that Apple would dream up.

Greed gets into people's souls, and once in, they will never let it go.
 
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