That’s according to research commissioned by the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), which found that Australian illegal file-sharers are richer than the average Australian. Of the 1,000 adults questioned, 21% admitted to pirating content, reports Torrentfreak, with 44% being under the age of 30 (no information on teenager behaviour was available).
The study found that the rate of piracy increased with the rise in net household income.
Almost a third (30%) of the confirmed pirates lived in households that earn more than A$100,000 (Australian dollars) – $133,500 in US currency – compared to 14% who lived in households earning less than A$40,000, and 27% earning A$60,000-A$100,000.
According to the latest figures available, the median net income of Australian households was around A$43,100 in December last year.
“Only” 11% of people in the 50-69 age group admitted to pirating.
A quarter of pirates have enjoyed a university education. Torrentfreak, incorrectly, claims this is “well above the country average” — Australians are better educated then it presumes, with about 25 percent having a university degree.
So what can we conclude from this study?
Torrentfreak claims that pirates will argue that “pirating makes people smarter” – an argument that clearly can’t be upheld by facts. They are just not more stupid than the average population.
Torrentfreak’s claim that the entertainment industry will make the case that pirates are “rich because they’re not paying for a lot of their media” will most likely also prove unfounded – more likely, the entertainment industry will question claims that illegal downloading is due to music being unaffordable.
The reason richer people download more is more likely due to the technology they can afford – expensive computers, Android phones and iPhones and high-speed broadband (this also explains why most file sharers, according to the research, live in a metro area rather than the countryside).
And stealing these products is much more likely to put you in jail than illegal file-sharing is.
Alternatively, another conclusion could be that more rich people have a less finely-tuned moral compass than poorer people – and after the grillings of Apple and Google in the US Congress and British Parliament, that could hardly come as news.
Image by Giorgio Montersino, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-SA 2.0).
“The reason richer people download more is more likely due to the technology they can afford – expensive computers, Android phones and iPhones and high-speed broadband (this also explains why most file sharers, according to the research, live in a metro area rather than the countryside). And stealing these products is much more likely to put you in jail than illegal file-sharing is.”
Spot on!
See what happens when you go to jail for stealing music:
Japan Is About to Become the Largest Music Market In the World
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130616japan
Can you cite a source showing the number of people going to jail for file sharing in Japan, please?
So you don’t take the threat of jail seriously. Cool.
But ordinary people certainly do.
Fact is, that Japan introduced jail sentences to illegal downloaders in June 2012.
And now we see the positive results in 2013 first-quarter sales:
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130616japan
You may want to live in the past, but this is fantastic news for the music industry.
Every government can now see how fast and easy we can change the game.
Uh hu
I’m surprised you didn’t put a picture of Diddy up there Paul now that you shook him down for $150,000.
One of diddy’s goons cracked a bottle of bub upside Resnikoff’s head
Payback for getting Resnikoff’d!!
Seriously?
“Alternatively, another conclusion could be that more rich people have a less finely-tuned moral compass than poorer people – and after the grillings of Apple and Google in the US Congress and British Parliament, that could hardly come as news.”
Gimme a break. Rich and poor people are equally as shitty. It’s called being a human being.
Agreed, I think it’s too hard to generalize like that.
I’ve met people who’ve grown up in abject poverty who are deeply generous and excellent people (one who works for me, in fact); then again, I’ve also met some really nasty poor people!
The same on the higher end. The people I know who are wealthy, I will say, tend to be more calculating and sometimes, just conniving; then again, there are also incredibly great and generous wealthy people (maybe partly because they aren’t so stressed about paying bills, who knows ;).
The best I can do is make light generalizations about behavior and income tiers, but those are difficult to quantify and almost always run into exceptions to these flimsy ‘rules’.
Written while listening to the Black Keys.
Yea, I think it’s purely just the general idea of knowledge. Poor people know more about some stuff than I ever will and I know more about some stuff than poor people ever will. Same with rich people. The difference is I, and rich people, have a significantly higher level of access to knowing more stuff than poor people. The simple fact that I own a laptop and have a job where I sit on it way too much (regardless that I work in music) is enough to make the chances of me aware of piracy significantly greater than someone without those things.
Poor people are generally less informed about most things. And that has nothing to do with their mental ability or potential, it’s purely access to information, or lack thereof.
I think that the easiest explanation – rightly pointed out – is that large-scale piracy requires considerable infrastructure and a modicum of tech-savvy. Since we’re having this discussion online, it’s likely we take these things for granted, but even a fairly basic thing like a broadband plan that will allow you to download large amounts of pirated stuff can become problematic if you are in a low-income group.
The stereotype of the cash-strapped pirate student dates back to a time where having broadband at home was a rare thing. These days I think we can safely say that most piracy happens at home and that those who engage in it are perfectly capable to pay for their entertainment consumption, though perhaps they’d have to make some choices, rather than slurping up everything indiscrminately. Contrary to popular belief, entertainmet was always cheapand now it’s cheaper than ever.
“I think that the easiest explanation – rightly pointed out – is that large-scale piracy requires considerable infrastructure and a modicum of tech-savvy.”
Goes for small-scale abuse too, as internet crime becomes riskier.
Pirates and pedophiles have to spend growing amounts of time and money on security — and they constantly have to keep up with the latest news in law enforcement.
Heck, just tryin’ to keep track of how many of their six strikes they’ve used up is ’nuff to keep their heads a spinnin’
i recall reading a study where ‘poor people’ were actually more likely to pay back their loans — and on the other end, that a significant number of ‘successful’ businesman had declared bankruptcy more than a few times.
can’t help but wonder if it’s a mindset of hypercosumerism: use other people’s money (or labor… or music) in order to get yourself ahead, and if they lose out, it’s their fault, they’re suckers.
another example: big bank CEOs making huge bonuses on predatory lones and ‘muppet’ investors; blowing up the econonomy.. but getting bailed out by the average taxpayer.
i know some very well-off people who gripe about paying too much taxes… who then will pretend they are a senior to save 3 bucks on a movie ticket, barely tip the waitress, gloat about their huge (illegally downloaded) music library on their ultra high end music system…
Is anybody surprised by this? Australia was founded by thieves!
Of course they do…wealthy people are used to getting everything for free in the first place. Secondly, even if they are caught, they have their high priced lawyers get them off any charges.
As an Australian myself, I see this behaviour alot – most wealthy people I know pay for literally NOTHING re entertainment, then again neither do a few poor peeps I know, who also pirate most things.
I would suggest money has little to do with it – it’s simply a recent attitude that says it’s fine to be a freeloading parasitical scumbag.
Worst of all, these people contribute nothing of value to the world,
they’re parasites in most repects, just highly paid ones.
Because they’re unable to produce anything of value, they don’t recognize value in the works of others.