The main objective of the study “European Citizens and IP: Perception, Awareness and Behaviour – 2023” is to gather knowledge about Europeans’ attitudes towards intellectual property rights, the extent to which they respect these rights and how they perceive the concept of IP as a whole.
According to the results of the study, a clear majority of Europeans state that they understand the concept of intellectual property quite well or very well and there is a clear consensus on the importance of respecting intellectual property in order to protect the rights and income of product and content producers and the quality of their products.
83% of Europeans say they have a fairly good or very good understanding of the concept of intellectual property. This percentage is high regardless of whether they have been involved in the purchase of counterfeit products or have accessed online content from illegal sources.
Regarding pirated online content, most Europeans are opposed to using illegal sources to access online content, but younger people tend to justify this behaviour more often than older people.
In general, most Europeans do not support the acquisition of digital content from illegal sources. The majority disagree with several reasons sometimes used to justify this behaviour, such as the fact that it is only justified in case of personal use (65% disagree or somewhat disagree), if the price of the content is too high (72%) or if the content is not available through a legitimate source (74%).
Among younger Europeans, access to content from illegal sources is considerably more common than average. In the 15-24 age group, 33% say they intentionally use illegal online sources, 27% say they have streamed content from illegal sources, 27% say they have watched sporting events and 25% say they have used illegal streaming devices to illegally access content – rates more than double the EU average.
See the summary of the report here (English).
See the full report here.