Once Again Top Downloaders Are Top Spenders, According To UK Gov't Study
from the how-many-times-does-it-have-to-be-said? dept
If there's one clear trend that has emerged in recent years, it's that those who download and share unauthorized copies of files the most also tend to be the most avid purchasers of similar material. This completely negates the copyright industry's rhetoric that people who share files are just a bunch of freeloaders, suggesting instead that it's more a matter of sampling materials before going on to buy. It also implies that instead of seeking to punish such downloaders, the copyright companies should actually try to nurture them as potentially their best customers.
Even worse for the maximalists is that much of the new research revealing this trend is being conducted not by groups wearing eye patches and sporting wooden legs, but by government bodies keen to better understand the underlying dynamics of the online world. We wrote about one such study back in November, which had been commissioned by the UK regulatory body Ofcom -- the epitome of dull respectability. A follow-up report with the ponderous title "Online copyright infringement tracker benchmark study 'Deep Dive' analysis report" (pdf) has now appeared offering additional insights into why people download and stream unauthorized copies, how much they spend anyway, and what might encourage them to spend even more. The large sample size -- over 10,000 people -- makes its findings particularly valuable.
Here's one of the key results:
The Top 10% Infringers accounted for just 1.6% of the 12+ internet user population, but were responsible for 79% of infringed content. The Top 20% infringers, accounting for 3.2% of 12+ internet users, were responsible for 88% of infringements.
As mentioned above, by now this is pretty much as expected, since survey after survey shows the same. But the current research explores a number of other aspects in greater depth, and presents new results we've not seen before. For example, in answer to the question "what would make you stop downloading or streaming content illegally?", the top answers by those downloading and spending the most were in the following order:
…
Despite their high levels of infringement, the Top 20% Infringers also accounted for 11% of the legal content consumed. The Top 20% Infringers also spent significantly more across all content types on average than either the Bottom 80% Infringers or the non-infringing consumers (£168 [$250] vs. £105 [$160] vs. £54 [$83] over the six month period covered).If legal services were cheaper
As that makes clear, the main obstacles stopping them spending even more is unreasonable pricing and lack of availability -- things that the copyright world is still dragging its feet over.
If everything I wanted was available legally
If legal services were more convenient\flexible
If everything I wanted was available legally online as soon as it was released elsewhere
If it is clearer what is legal and what isn't
If legal services were better
If a subscription I was interested in became available
The new analysis also tries to break down those accessing unauthorized copies into four broad categories that reflect their different attitudes. These are:
1. Justifying Infringers (9% of infringers, 24% of infringed volume, 2% of total digital consumers)
It's well worth reading the full report to see what the detailed analysis reveals about each of them. The research also tries to understand the different kinds of users who always access authorized copies, both paid and free, and then compares them in a variety of ways with the other group.
2. Digital Transgressors (9% of infringers, 22% of infringed volume, 2% of total digital consumers)
3. Free Infringers (42% of infringers, 35% of infringed volume, 10% of total digital consumers)
4. Ambiguous Infringers (39% of infringers, 20% of infringed volume, 9% of total digital consumers)
All-in-all, this is a valuable contribution to the field, and Ofcom is to be congratulated for continuing to commission innovative research that tries to get beyond the simplistic statistics that have hitherto been used to justifying ever-harsher punishments, in order to understand how the interests of both public and creators can be better aligned for their mutual benefit.
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Filed Under: best customers, downloaders, infringement, uk
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Re:
At this point all the pirates know how they're supposed to respond to these unscientific surveys:
"Always tell them you spend lots of money on content every month, it helps our PR claims!"
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Re: Re:
"Let's accuse them of lying about their spending even if we can't prove it, we might even be able to claim the moral high ground for once!"
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Oh Noes!
(That ought to keep Blue busy with his conspiracy theories for awhile)
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Re: Oh Noes!
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That only shows how we need to imprison them for life so they can never spend another dime on content!
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Who cares?
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If nothing else, you've achieved all 3 fallacies in one comment. Congrats, I guess...
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Who cares?
Umm...store proprietors who wish convert shoplifters into paying customers maybe.
Or they could waste more money on security and the alienation of this group of people and still be in lose-lose situation if they want, I guess. Doesn't make much business sense to me, but whatever.
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Re:
Typical anti techdirt drone: When you can't debate techdirt with the facts, come out swinging with a bad anology
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...at encouraging piracy among people who tired of buying DVDs with 10 minutes of advertising and propaganda forced on you every time you want to watch the movie you legally purchased...
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Shoplifting causes actual financial loss due to physical goods theft. Also shoplifters simply won't be their biggest customers and no report would say such.
Infringers only copy so nothing is lost beyond a potential sale but look-see here a detailed report that proves that this free viewing causes a 200% sales boost. The potential sale becomes an actual sale but one more informed and selective about what they like.
Your move MAFIAA. Are you still going to attack file sharing proving to all you care only about control while risking a 200% sales drop from this group worth millions? Or are you going to work with us to give the public what they really want... a free trading consumer market. Would not your sales then increase?
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Re:
The data bears out the facts. People who infringe spend more than people who don't and this isn't the first study that found this trend. The logical conclusion is that people that infringe more have a wider exposure to content and are more likely to find things they want to spend money on. Simply put, content is advertising. If content is advertising, I'd wager that the content industry would want to put as much content into the hands of their customers as they possibly can.
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Re: your stupid rhetorical question
Obviously, you do. Otherwise, why even mention it?
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Re:
And that, right there, is the problem with dinosaur business models. When faced with innovation, their answer can be summed up in two words.
I'm sure that's what the horse and buggy industry said about automobiles. What the Newspaper industry said about the web. What the post office said about email. But it goes further back in history that these few of many examples . . .
"Hey, be careful! Did you notice those tarpits over there?"
"Who cares?"
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This. OOTB and his Big Media Masters need to do exactly this or SHUT THE FUCK UP about "piracy" "theft" and "losses."
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Once the studios or any of their shills start using terms like 'pirate', 'piracy', 'theft', or 'stealing', it usually means they are not going to listen to what anyone says. It's the modern day version of someone yelling out 'heresy' during the conversation--a clear indication that any meaningful discussion of the issue can no longer take place.
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I do await the usual bleating about anomalies etc etc etc. Yawn.
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NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
Get the PDF here:
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms-research/online-copyright/deep-di ve.pdf
Go down to table 3.4, Digital Content Consumption, and compare "Mean No. COnsumed" under Film between Top 20% and Bottom 80% (of Infringers!), and see that the ratio between those two is ELEVEN TO ONE. -- And the ratio of spending is nowhere near that. The biggest pirates are STILL just freeloading at a fraction of the sum honest people would pay for as much content.
So the biggest pirates consume more content WAY out of proportion to any more that they claim to spend.
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Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
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Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
Translation: Looks like you're right. My apologies for being such a douchenozzle.
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Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
Not sure how true that really is Blue. This metric is relatively easy to measure. There are a lot of factors of your so called "honest people" that can't be measured. Loan a DVD to a friend, listen to the radio, watching a movie with a group of friends, wait for the movie to come out on TV, borrowing books from family, etc, etc. All consuming content without directly paying for it.
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Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
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Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
ALL THOSE ARE LEGAL. (Yeah, maybe the corporations WISH they weren't, but they are.)
You are comparing thieves with honest people, and to "prove" your point that thieves are perfectly okay, you say what honest people do, but not a word about the thieves who consume many times more content, nor do you refute my point that they obviously pay a fraction of the honest price.
"Not sure how true that really is Blue." -- WELL I AM. Do you think a weaseally "not sure" is going to sway anyone weighing the facts, let alone ME?
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Re: Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
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Re: Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
It just is if it's done "on a computer" it's suddenly theft.
This is silly, we all know this. The choice is whether you let yourself be bound by stupid laws or try and change them.
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Re: Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
Ummm no Blue. You compared them, not me. I was just pointing out that you are missing data on the comparison.
Do you think a weaseally "not sure" is going to sway anyone weighing the facts, let alone ME?
I'm not interested in "swaying" you in the slightest, Blue. Just pointing out to everyone else reading this that your comparison is incomplete. If you want to base your opinion on incomplete data, go right ahead, I don't care. But when you spout it out like it's the gospel truth, I will continue correct you. Ok? Have a nice day.
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Re: Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
Why shouldn't they? It is theft to take something from the artist without giving anything in return, isn't it?
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Re: Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
ALL THOSE ARE LEGAL. (Yeah, maybe the corporations WISH they weren't, but they are.)
Copyright law can largely be set arbitrarily. Congress could legalize currently illegal piracy right away, if they wanted to. It could be done and in effect in under two weeks.
You appear to be okay with the idea that copyright holders shouldn't get complete control over their works (eg not able to control or get paid for lending of books) and that the law determines what should and shouldn't fall under copyright,, presumably for some public purpose, rather than the authors' wishes being of paramount importance.
So why shouldn't the law be reformed to legalize at least some currently illegal acts? We could make it legal for natural persons to engage in otherwise infringing behavior, so long as they did not receive any commercial benefit from it, beyond the benefit of the infringement itself. That is, it would be legal to download a song, and the benefit of having the song wouldn't disqualify it from the new exception, but it wouldn't be legal to charge for it, to require an exchange of pirated works, to have ads on qualifying websites, or to solicit donations, etc.
This would solve a lot of problems with copyright.
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Re: Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
When looking at the economic impact of a situation, don't fall into the trap of discarding anything because it's illegal. Economics doesn't really care if something is legal or illegal, it only matters if it exists or not.
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Re: Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
Who are you talking about? What does theft have to do with anything.
And what about that "honest price".
I can buy Michael Jackson's compact disk Thriller for $6.99. That is almost 4 years after the death of Michael Jackson and 31 years after it was released. I am talking about the "best selling album of all time". What does it cost to procedure one CD? $0.20?
If that is what you call an "honest price", and make everyone who is deprived of legal content out to be thieves, then you are a disingeneous lying bastard.
But you won't read this anyway. You only post your messages to derail valuable discussions and to excuse your masters for their immoral behavior to bend the law for their gain while hurting society in the process.
Copyright should be reduced to 5 years with an obligation to provide mandatory reasonable pricing, and no right to enforce copyright until such time this reasonable pricing is available for the customer in the respective country.
And you, you should lose your job, and should start helping society...
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Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
It doesn't matter one iota if people who line the pockets of publishers, studios and labels consumer more content per $ spent than the people who put a lot less money in the pockets of same.
The point is, the content producers as a whole make more money from pirates than they do from people who don't infringe on copyright. In business you don't care how much benefit your customers get as long as the benefits they get don't cost you and this survey shows as many other studies have shown that pirates are good for business.
Money spent fighting piracy however, is money wasted.
Whether its on DMCA takedowns, court cases or DRM, it's been clear for a while now that they might as well be flushing money down the toilet.
Anti-Piracy is a major financial drag on businesses, with no upside.
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The Great Catch-22
If you discourage people from consuming. You will also discourage them from buying. If you get them accustomed to "doing without" when they are in a poor position to pay, then they may never bother at all.
The American consumer culture is built on "enough is never enough". If you attack that, then you're far more subversive and dangerous than mere a pirate.
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Re: The Great Catch-22
Exactly right.
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Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
When more spending is worse than less spending, "because piracy", you do naught but tilt at windmills.
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Re: Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
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Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
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Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
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Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
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Re: NOT "a valuable contribution to the field" -- IT'S A SURVEY.
And you think that matters in absolute terms? Does it cost the industry anything for them to have that content for free? Would those people actually be able to afford all the content they consume? No, it doesn't and they can't. But in absolute terms, they spend more money than your so-called "honest" people. The cost of letting people have that content is $0 because people that use p2p invest their own bandwidth and energy. It's free distribution for the publisher, even if it goes against their wishes, which are not sacrosanct by the way. So by comparison, $300 profit from an infringer is still $300 profit compared to $100 profit a non-infringer, which is still only $100 profit. With the cost per sale being the same, the infringer is sill generating more profit for the industry than the "honest" people.
So get off your high horse and leave your delusional concepts of morality and property rights behind.
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Hopefully some of this will sink in and the industry will finally realise that they cannot "win" while they refuse to address customer demand. The UK market is better served than most countries outside of the US, yet it's still a confusing mess that leaves a great many people completely unserved by the legal channels on offer.
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Results of Wall Street stock traders survey:
A further item is that -635% said that they're parasites on labor. (Best approximation from multiple denials and death threats.)
Also perhaps indicative is that every survey returned had with it cash, check, or credit card number; gold or silver including jewelry with gems; nearly all came with stock tips, plus many had bags of illegal drugs.
^Point is that people KNOW how surveys work and give self-serving answers.
Also, freetards, don't skip this opposing -- much better written besides timely -- view:
What freetard are you: Justified, transgressor or just honest?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/13/ofcom_freetard_field_guide/
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Re: Results of Wall Street stock traders survey:
He's probably just jealous because Orlowski (I knew the article was by that lying troll before I clicked) turns off comments for all his articles, thus avoiding the factual smackdown that follows even one of ootb's posts here.
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Re: Results of Wall Street stock traders survey:
Probably true.
Ya know what is also true? The surveyors usually know that people know how surveys work and give self-serving answers so they adjust the questions accordingly.
That's why the methodology and survey process itself are just as important as the results on ANY survey. As long as all the background information is available, any intelligent person can decide for themselves how much weight to give any results. It's surveys that attempt to hide the process (legacy gatekeepers - I'm talking about you!) that aren't worth the paper they are printed on.
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Re: Results of Wall Street stock traders survey:
Ah good, so the next time the MAFIAA comes out with one of their "piracy is the destroyer of all things!" screeds, we can do like you and hand-wave it away because it is self- serving.
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Re: Re: Results of Wall Street stock traders survey:
That's not what I said.
If the survey is backed with the methodology and survey process information, then no, I wouldn't just wave it away.
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Re: Re: Re: Results of Wall Street stock traders survey:
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Re: Results of Wall Street stock traders survey:
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re-read the report
The real contention is that the high spending pirates would likely have spent much more without piracy.
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Re: re-read the report
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Re: re-read the report
That's the assumption that the last 15 years of failed bullshit has been based on, and it's still failing. How about we try the "offer people a better deal and they'll buy more" and the default assumption rather than "if we could only get rid of piracy we'll be rich again!".
"there is no indication anywhere that giving people unlimited free access to stuff "
Nobody's pushing this as a solution. Stop lying.
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Re: Re: re-read the report
Nobody's pushing this as a solution. Stop lying.
The funny thing is, we already have access to unlimited free stuff! It is out there right now on torrent sites, p2p applications and even the passing of physical drives from friend to friend. And yet people still are buying a ton and your highest spending customers are the ones most accessing this unlimited free stuff! Therefore the solution should automatically be on how to use the free stuff to make MORE money! How can you maximize this unlimited resource to your advantage.
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Re: Re: re-read the report
Slight correction... The ones complaining are the ones that are at the top of the ladder. They're already rich.
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Re: Re: re-read the report
Are the "creative" people dumber than the "tech" people?
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Re: re-read the report
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Re: re-read the report
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Re: re-read the report
What does that mean? No one is ever going to make piracy disappear.
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Re: re-read the report
People who do not infringe have their high and low spenders also where the general average works out at �54 over six months.
Again casual infringers have high and low spenders with the average of �105 over six months a 94.4% sales boost.
Then heavy infringers have both high spenders and total freeloaders as the report makes clear where there average is �168 over six months a 211% sales boost.
Trying to make out that all media lovers become pirates is stupid when it is just that pirates with a far larger media exposure get far more engaged instead of going out and playing sports or socializing or such.
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Re: re-read the report
High spending pirates are a small part of the total marketplace, with you so far. There is a survey indicating that the legal services are insufficient. Your third sentence is completely without merit. Who is advocating "unlimited free access"? And if you say that high spending pirates are a minority, then isn't there even more reason to listen to their reasoning (Which is clearly, lower prices and better legal services...)?
The real contention has nothing to do with the completely unsubstantiated claim that the high spending pirates would spend more. The real contention is how do you get the lower spending pirates to convert to legal services (at least in this world)?
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Re: Re: re-read the report
You almost got it. What you have to understand is the the current non-infringers are a market 8 to 10 times larger than the total "pirates who buy" market, which means that there is little reason to change. The real risks here aren't that the existing pirates will pirate more or less, rather that the true paying customers will learn not to pay.
Remember too that all of the non-infringers are lumped together in one area. There is no attempt made to filter out "non-buyers in any manner" in each group. I have seen reports on this site and others suggesting that nearly 50% of the population does not directly purchase content in a year - and this survey only looked at 3 - 6 months back. When you really start to look at it, you can see where the non-infringers who do buy likely spend at least as much as the middle group, and the huge gap to the rare big spenders shrinks.
Done in real sales dollars, the report would draw the entirely opposite conclusion, that non-infringers buy nearly 10 times as much as infringers, so keeping them from infringing is good for the bottom line.
Cutting costs for lower dollar services doesn't seem to be much of a starter in many ways, as they would appear to be lowering the costs to the majority of the people who pay, in order to play to the minority who don't.
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Re: Re: Re: re-read the report
So let's be clear... There's an entire market outside of the DVD, legal usage group that aren't being sampled?
So you're saying that teenagers with disposable income, friends given DVDs for sampling or other people that may not spend directly on income need to be marketed to and this will show that you need to punish them instead of giving them better alternatives?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: re-read the report
Not sure where you get that. All I am saying is that the report points out that certain pirates are the biggest spenders, and my reply is that they are only a small part of the market. Adjust radically downward the price in your main market (or giving free access with the hope of them buying anyway) to cater to a smaller group seems a little backwards.
Take the report and work it out. The 50 pounds average group is so many times larger than the "big spending pirates" group that their market dwarfs them by a factor of 10. Are you suggesting that they give up the 90% of the profitable market to concentrate on meeting the needs of the few?
Allowing piracy to expand to the point where everyone (including your parents) would be using it as their sole source wouldn't increase business. It's pretty simple.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: re-read the report
But that's the problem. The markets have grown larger and the people spending the most aren't the ones being catered to. The markets also include the people with disposable income such as teenagers who share and find content regardless of legality. I haven't yet read the report but I would guess that is the main market which makes sense for a number of reasons. Firstly, without the larger responsibilities of adulthood, their money goes to finance more projects and use content. That really hasn't changed since... Well, quite some time.
llowing piracy to expand to the point where everyone (including your parents) would be using it as their sole source wouldn't increase business.
But in report after report, that's what happens. When Steam lowered prices and followed a global release of a few days instead of weeks, piracy disappeared for them and Germany as well as Russia became great customers.
Lowering prices and increasing availability has worked far more than catering to the current average.
Besides that, who relies on a sole source for content? That makes no sense.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: re-read the report
They may be a small part of the people in the market, but they are the majority of the people who spend money in the market.
An analogy: the people who drive cars are a small part of humans in general, but they are a large part of the market for people who buy gasoline.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: re-read the report
Actually, I saw that it was a bad analogy as soon as I made it.
The people who drive cars are a small part of those humans who need to quickly get from Point A to Point B.
They are a large part of the market for those who buy gasoline. But the people who drive cars are a small portion of the people who 1. Drive cars, 2. Ride the subway, 3. Bike, 4. Walk.
What you're saying - exactly - is: if you don't like the price of gas, don't drive. But that only means that more people will bike, take the subway, or walk.
And all of those people will result in exactly the same losses to the driving industry, as if they'd simply acquired gasoline for free. Moreover, they will get used to doing without gasoline.
If you're living in a world where nobody drives anymore, what would you do?
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Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
^Accurate title for this article. It'd also have been comment enough, had I thought of it earlier.
Once again proving the value of the "out_of_the_blue" screen name, my substance drives the commenting here. That's why Mike keeps me round: otherwise it's just "early" commenting saying that they're commenting early.
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Re: Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
Not me. I just happen to think that providing the services that people want is a better way to fighht piracy than increased enforcement that usually tends to collide with my inalienable rights.
All claim to spend heaps on content.
For me it's not a claim, it's a fact. DirectTV, Premimum channels, Netflix, Amazon books, Good Old Games and much more.
Once again proving the value of the "out_of_the_blue" screen name, my substance drives the commenting here. That's why Mike keeps me round: otherwise it's just "early" commenting saying that they're commenting early.
Yes, yes, Blue. Everyone who comes to Techdirt is here ONLY to see YOUR comments, of course.
Now that I have stroked your fragile ego a bit, will you please go away now?
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Re: Re: Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
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Re: Re: Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
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Re: Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
These and many other questions I'm sure will be ignored....
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Re: Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
I don't claim to, I do.
Spotify premium subscription
Netflix subscription
Spend around �100 a month on music
Buy DVDs when there is something worth buying
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Re: Re: Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
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Re: Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
Like your "charity comment"? That's what passes for "substance"? No wonder no one wants to purchase your content; even your free offerings suck.
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Re: Techdirt fanboys cheer self-confessed thieves.
No, that would be "Downloaders are top spenders, according to UK Gov't survey".
Or if you prefer: "Techdirt cheers factual survey, terrorists respond with "Thieves" lie as usual".
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