A new study into the differences between movie and music pirate shows the film pirates to be a very different breed from those who steal music.
Dr Joe Cox and Professor Alan Collins, economists at the University of Portsmouth, found the movie pirate to be less likely to stop paying to see movies alongside stealing them, prolific movie pirates also tend to be wealthier, less worried about being caught and more likely to cut down their piracy if they think they are harming the industry.
They are also more likely to live in large cities and be ‘early adopters’ of new technology.
The research is published in the Journal of Behavioural and Experimental Economics.
The researchers analysed results from a survey of more than 6,000 people aged seven to 84 to examine the attitudes of those who illegally download movies and music from the internet.
On average, each person had illegally downloaded about 2,900 music files and 90 movie files.
Dr Cox said: “It is interesting to see that people who illegally download large quantities of movie files continue to pay for legal movie consumption to a far greater extent than music downloaders.
“However, it came as no surprise to find that the most prolific pirates of either movies or music tend to be younger men. They have the skills, the motivation and the equipment to between them to steal large volumes of music tracks and movies every month.”
The researchers, from Portsmouth Business School, analysed a Finnish survey dataset of 6,100 people, which reinforces that piracy is not limited to the US and UK markets and that the behaviours and attitudes are similar worldwide.