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Around 15% of UK internet users over the age of 12 consumed at least one item of online content illegally in the three months leading up to March 2017.
This is according to the seventh wave of a continuing tracking study delivered by Kantar Media, a data intelligence group.
The study was originally commissioned in 2012 by the UK’s broadcasting and telecoms regulator Ofcom and sponsored by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO).
It looks at six main types of online content: music, film, TV programmes, e-books, video games and computer software.
Levels of infringement varied by content type, with TV programmes now recording the highest levels (8%) among internet users, followed by music (7%) and films (6%).
According to the study, while the proportion of those who have consumed any of the key six content types entirely legally remained stable year-on-year, there have been some shifts in the proportions who consume either a mixture of legal and illegal content, or entirely illegal content.
“Those who claim to have consumed a mixture have increased significantly, up from 16% in 2016 to 18% in 2017. This has resulted in a significant drop amongst those who have consumed entirely illegal content, which has decreased from 9% in 2016 to 7% in 2017,” said the report.
Men under the age of 35 were more likely to download or stream content illegally.
Video games recorded a significant decrease in terms of illegal downloading/accessing, dropping from 10% in 2016 to 6% in 2017.
“However, this coincides with an increase in the proportion claiming to consume both legal and illegal content (up from 7% in 2016 to 10% in 2017), thus the overall infringement level does not change significantly,” it said.
online copyright, copyright infringement, UKIPO, copyright, behaviour, Kantar Media
