Illegal File-Sharing Costs UK GBP12.5bn A Year

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

04 June 2009

A report published late last month has highlighted the huge economic losses which are being sustained due to large-scale unauthorized downloading, generated by widespread confusion about copyright law in the online world.

The report, "Copycats? Digital Consumers in the on-line age," was commissioned by The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP) and conducted by UCL's Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER).

It examines online consumer behaviour in the UK and its potential impact on business and government policy, and is the first piece of research to look at evidence from across the copyright industries and across all age ranges.

The report states that new generation broadband access at 50 mega bytes per second (mbs) can deliver 200 mp3 files in five minutes; a DVD in three minutes and the complete digitized works of Charles Dickens in less than ten minutes.

David Lammy, the UK's Minister of State for Intellectual Property commented:

"As SABIP's report shows, illegal downloading robs our economy of millions of pounds every year and seriously damages business and innovation throughout the UK. It is something that needs tackling, and we are serious about doing so."

"However, it is also an international problem that needs an international solution through countries working together. We can't expect 12 year olds to become copyright lawyers before they can switch on a computer, but we can educate people on enforcement and work towards getting the right people caught and punished-wherever they live."

The authors of the report found that on one peer-to-peer network at midday on a weekday, there were 1.3 million users sharing content. If each "peer" from this network (not the largest) downloaded one file per day the resulting number of downloads (music, film, television, e-books, software and games were all available) would be 4.73 billion items per year. This amounts to around GBP12bn (USD19bn) in content being consumed annually - for free.

The problems faced by industry are therefore huge, but currently neither academic research nor industry reports give policy makers the information and date needed to inform and develop the debate.

Dame Lynne Brindley, SABIP Board member, said:

"CIBER's work is a huge step forward in understanding on-line consumer attitudes across the generations. This new evidence can develop a clear research strategy to support policy development in this fast moving area."

The CIBER report has already helped inform a workshop which brought together a number of key industry stakeholders, with academics and consumer representatives to help SABIP focus on where the priorities for future research in this area lie. Issues such as:

• The perception of anonymity online: would people's behaviour change if they knew they were visible online?
• What impact do ISP warning letters have?
• The factors behind successful public-interest interventions (e.g. anti-litter campaign;5-a-day "eat well, be well" campaign);
• The development of a consumer trend survey to measure the impact of awareness-raising campaigns and changes in government and industry policy; and
• What leads consumers to infringe on-line?

These are just some of the areas for research which are currently being considered by the SABIP.

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