Survey: 93 percent of Dutch youngsters download illegally

Posted by Mister-X on May 23rd, 2009 at 09:30pm

Hey, Netherlandian young adults! Stop all the downloadin‘! If a recent survey of 3,500 folks between the ages of 12 – 24 (issued by Dutch television program EénVandaag) is accurate, 93 percent of Dutch adolescents “download music, movies or games from the Internet,” while only five percent use honest, paid services such as iTunes and Steam. The remaining two percent responded with a perplexed “vwat ees an eentarnet?”

An interesting caveat: Downloading copyrighted media isn’t actually illegal in the Netherlands — but uploading copyrighted works is. Bizarrely enough, the Dutch pirates’ preferred form of file sharing is BitTorrent, with 45 percent using sites such as The Pirate Bay to yoink their movies, music and games. However, BitTorrenting, which causes users to download and upload simultaneously, is illegal under the Netherlands’ copyright regulations. Fascinating, right? Right?

[Via MaxConsole]

Survey: 93 percent of Dutch youngsters download illegally originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 23 May 2009 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.