Study shows 51% of young people haven’t pirated a movie in the last year

Pirating is down, according to a new study published by the European Union Intellectual Property Office, which states that 51% of young people haven’t illegally accessed any digital content this year. 

The study found that the number of young people running to illegal sources for digital content has dropped since 2016, with 33% of young people visiting illegal sources – either intentionally or unintentionally – compared to 38% in 2016.

The EU Intellectual Property Office approached a number of 15 to 24 year old volunteers across the 28 EU States in order to identify the differences between attitudes toward pirating in 2016 and now. The 2019 Intellectual Property and Youth Scoreboard – spotted by TorrentFreak – aims to understand the drivers and barriers that affect young people’s decisions when it comes to accessing their digital content online.

Related: Apple TV Plus

Of that 33%, the majority of those asked used illegal sources to access films and TV series. In fact, there has been a notable decrease in the number of young people using illegal sources to access music compared with three years ago – while almost all young people download or stream music online, only 39% of those pirating content look toward illegal sources to access music in 2019.

Price and choice are major factors for those who do pirate. In fact, over half of young people using illegal sources intentionally blamed high subscription prices, while over a quarter said that there is a larger choice of content available illegally.

It isn’t hugely surprisingly that more users are pirating TV than music. While music streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify both offer a wide array of artists and albums, TV streaming site libraries are generally more limited with exclusive content found of each service and more networks launching their own services every year.

Just today Apple launched its own Apple TV Plus with shows like See and The Morning Show that users can’t access anywhere else.

Related: Disney Plus

TV and film subscriptions have nevertheless become more popular with young people than they were in 2016, with the majority of those still accessing content illegally doing so alongside legal sources.

“The idea of subscription-based business models for digital content appears to have gained traction, with a 9 percentage point increase in those saying that paying a subscription to access all content is important”, states the report. “It remains rare that young people rely exclusively on illegal sources – 80% of the sample said they use legal sources to access digital content”.