International Federation Against Copyright Theft – Greater China (IFACT-GC) releases results of a survey which it claims shows a “vast majority” of Hong Kong people prefer a graduated response system to fight illeagl file-sharing, and that disconnecting pirates is a “win-win” situation for everybody.
The International Federation Against Copyright Theft – Greater China (IFACT-GC) recently released the results of a survey which it claims “confirms a strong preference” for a graduated response system to fight illegal file-sharing in Hong Kong.
According to the survey, 81.8% of the respondents said that they would be likely to stop (71%) or may stop (10.8%) illegally downloading copyrighted material if a “3-strikes” regime was in place. More than half (53.6%) of the respondents even said they would stop after the first warning from their ISP.
The survey found the respondents were supportive of the implementation of a Graduated Response System, with 57.1% of the respondents either “strongly supportive” or “supportive”. Only 20% of respondents were against a Graduated Response System, with 22.9% either having mixed views or no comment.
“Distributing content without the consent of the creators is illegal and that’s akin to theft,” said Mike Ellis, Motion Picture Association’s President & Managing Director of the Asia-Pacific Region. “It is heartening to note that most people would stop if warned once – they know that what they are doing is wrong. We have seen the same results in other countries.”
Given a choice between disconnection and prosecution via new laws intended to tackle online piracy 68.9% naturally said they preferred the latter. I’m not sure the other 31.1% really understood the question. I can’t imagine they’d rather face jail time than having their ISP pull the plug.
As usual, the study paints a doom and gloom scenario with the claim that 60% of respondents admitted to having downloaded or shared content online, and that nearly 74% of that content was downloaded or shared without the permission of the copyright holder.
What the results don’t tell you is that they come from a random two-day telephone survey involving interviews with a mere 1,000 people. The population of Hong Kong is more than 7 million! A survey from such a small sample size shouldn’t be used to enact draconian Internet regulations to protect an outdated business model.
IFACT even tries to use the results to claim that a “majority” of Hong Kong people really do want a graduated response system.
“The findings highlight the fact that the vast majority of Hong Kong people acknowledge the need to step up efforts to combat illegal file-sharing,” said Sam Ho, the group’s Executive Director and General Manager. “Graduated response is an effective means to address the issue of online piracy and
creates a win-win situation for all parties concerned.”
Not only is it a likely bogus claim that a “vast majority” would like to see people disconnected from the Internet, but neither is it a “win-win” situation for everybody involved. The only people that “win” are copyright holders. Consumers, as usual, would be the one who lose. P2P is the only reason the music industry entered the digital music game, and even then it took years of declining losses for it to remove DRM restrictions and increase content selection.
What IFACT ought to do is conduct a random telephone survey and ask people what kind of content delivery and selection services they’d like to see and use the results to go after their business.
Now that’s a survey I’d like to see.
Stay tuned.
This makes perfect sense. The street vendors are losing money and can’t compete with online piracy.
It’s big business interests again… just a different big business.
There is something wrong with these record here, People in Hong Kong barely have any free time and barely have any stamina to care about copyrights.
Either IFACT-GC fake it out the result or they just plainly make it up.
The result is so hard to believe, with 42 % support! and the rest are 15 %.
Right, you might are…