Three out of five UK adults don’t believe that musicians should profit from their singles and music videos being downloaded online, according to a survey of 2,000 adults carried out for network integration specialist Telindus.

The British disdain for content owners profiting from their art online increases when it comes to film and TV makers, with over two thirds of UK adults believing that they shouldn’t derive any royalties.

Forty-four per cent of people that download music, films and video games admitted to never paying for content that they were supposed to. Men proved to be the most prolific online pirates with half never paying for content, compared to 38 per cent of women.The reluctance to pay for online content may be due to the fact that confusion is rife over the Intellectual Property rights of material posted on the Internet.

The majority of consumers view access as a ‘free for all’. Only a quarter of people believe that they still own the rights to the content they post on sites such as Facebook, YouTube and MySpace, 19 per cent felt that no one had ownership rights to content once it was in the public domain and 37 per cent had no idea who owned online content.

The threat of legal action is clearly failing to deter UK adults from illegal downloads. While 59 per cent of people stated that they were aware of the Internet piracy laws governing the downloading of digital content and half knew the consequences, a fifth admitted that they knew which websites to visit to illegally download material.

Story filed 20.07.09