Stopping digital pirates : a study about the perceived efficiency of approaches employed by music and movie industries to stop file sharing in P2P networks

Music and movie industries are worried about the negative effects that the popularity of P2P file sharing networks might have. To try and put an end to this, they have employed several different approaches. The purpose of this research was to find out what age groups most actively involved in file sharing think about these approaches, as well as come up with improvement suggestions, and to gain more understanding about their opinions about file sharing in general. A quantitative research approach was used and data was collected with the help of a survey from 651 mainly Finnish respondents under the age of 30. The data was analysed using statistics. Almost half of the respondents were active file sharers while only 9% are active first sources, copying material and posting it online. Findings support the theory that males are more active as females. Both genders have an acceptable opinion towards downloading music and movies for private use even though the knowledge of copyright issues is relatively good and a large part of them think that sharing this material in P2P networks hurts financially both movie and music companies and performing artists. One reason for this accepting attitude is that majority of all respondents think that CDs and DVDs are too expensive. Lawsuits, Internet shops and copy protection were seen as the most effective ways to stop file sharing. This is interesting because the majority of the respondents at the same time think that the lawsuits of the industries against private persons are not justified and think that the kind of copy protection scheme cannot be created that nobody can break. Educational and anti-piracy campaigns and watermarking were seen as the least effective ways. Active P2P users and first sources of material in P2P networks do not have as much faith in technological solutions as those who do not download, but they have a more positive opinion about new and more flexible business models like for example Internet shops and adding value to the traditional product by using opendisc technology than those who do not use P2P networks.Validerat; 20101217 (root