I would too.
A Danish study conducted by the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit on the topic of law and ethics breaches has found (among other things) that piracy is a practice widely accepted by the population.
The study analyzed people’s attitudes towards two kinds of piracy: piracy for personal use and piracy for profit. When questioned about piracy for personal use, 20% of respondents said it’s acceptable, 50% said they’re skeptical but not against it, and 30% said it’s unacceptable. Regarding piracy for profit (selling pirated copies), only 2% of the participants said it’s something acceptable, 23% were not against it and 75% believed it’s something completely unacceptable.
While the results are not surprising, it’s worth mentioning that a similar study conducted over a decade ago had similar results (30% believed using pirated software was unacceptable), suggesting that all the campaigning against piracy has been useless.
Personally, I have nothing against piracy. It’s hard to feel empathy for corporate interests these days.
PS: The Danes captured by Somali pirates don’t approve of piracy, obviously.
partially translated PDF of the study | original paper (PDF)
