39% Are Unconcerned Piracy Hurts Content Creators, Survey Says

LOS ANGELES — Results of a new poll offer a disturbing glimpse on how many U.S. consumers view media piracy.

According to a new survey commissioned by Irdeto, a provider of digital security technologies, about one-third (32 percent) of consumers polled watch pirated content even though they know it's illegal to do so and that it deprives the content creators of revenue.

Irdeto also found that 74 percent of U.S. consumers acknowledged that uploading pirated video content is illegal while 69 percent agreed that streaming or downloading pirated content is illegal.

Irdeto said that when informed that pirated video content can result in studios losing money, 39 percent of consumers said that has no effect on the amount of pirated video content they want to watch.

Only 19 percent of respondents said that the financial damage caused by piracy would stop them from watching pirated content altogether.

The adult filmmaking industry has been one of the hardest hit in terms of piracy and it continues to run rampant, with thousands of takedown notices sent each day.

Los Angeles-based adult company Dreamroom Productions, a niche producer of Asian porn content, for example, has made 59.3 million requests to Google to remove content in the past four years.

Irdeto’s online survey of 1,190 U.S. adults 18 and older was conducted by YouGov from Dec. 29- Jan. 3.

Netherlands-based Irdeto is a software security technology and services firm.