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Poll: Americans think downloading no big deal

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By Etan Vlessing
Hollywood Reporter
updated 4:26 p.m. ET Jan. 26, 2007

TORONTO - Most Americans regard the illegal downloading and distributing of Hollywood movies as something on par with minor parking offenses, according to a report issued Wednesday.

Only 40 percent of Americans polled by Toronto-based Solutions Research Group agreed that downloading copyrighted movies on the Internet was a "very serious offense."

That compares with the 78 percent who said shoplifting a DVD from the local video store was a very serious offense.

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"There is a Robin Hood effect," said Kaan Yigit, study director at Solutions Research Group. "Most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don’t think of movie downloading as a big deal.”

The survey found that 59 percent of Americans polled considered "parking in a fire lane" a more serious offense than movie downloading.

Yigit said that existing download-to-own movie services and new market entrants will need to be more flexible in first-run and catalog content offerings and pricing if they want to convince consumers to pay copyright holders for product.

“Otherwise file-sharing will continue to thrive,” he said.

The Digital Life America survey polled about 2,600 Americans between June and late September.

Copyright 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

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