Americans Think Downloading Music for Personal Use Is an Innocent Act

While the news media have been filled with stories about what some are calling “Internet music piracy,” a large majority of the American public views downloading music for personal use as an innocent act, and thinks the high price of CDs leads to a lot of downloading. These are the results of a Harris Interactive survey of 2,306 adult Americans conducted online between September 16 and 23, 2003.

Fully three in four adult Americans (75%) agree that “downloading and then selling the music is piracy and should be prohibited, downloading for personal use is an innocent act and should not be prohibited.”

This is consistent with a Harris Interactive survey of teens released in October 2003 which showed that roughly three in four teens feel that downloading music files without paying (74%) and letting others download files from them (78%) should be legal.

An almost equal 70% say, “If the price of CDs was a lot lower, there would be a lot less downloading of music off the Internet.”

There are a couple of good tables, but I like this one best:

TABLE 3

IS DOWNLOADING DIFFERENT?

“There has been a lot of news lately about what some are calling ‘Internet music piracy.’ Please tell me if you agree or disagree with the following statement: Downloading music off the Internet is no different from buying a used CD or recording music borrowed from a friend.”

Base: All Adults

	Total	AGE
		18-24	25-29	30-39	40-49	50-64	65+
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Agree	54	70	66	56	56	48	36
Disagree	31	18	28	28	30	38	39
Not sure	15	12	6	16	14	14	25