Pirating statistics

The UK government has made much of the impact of piracy on the uk economy - and the scale of the 'problem.' Seven million people are engaged in piracy and they are costing a virtual fortune. (Virtual for as everyone knows one download does not equal one lost sale).

But seven million people?


BBC Radio Four's More or Less programme has been looking into the claim. What they find is reported here... but to cut a long story short, depending on what assumptions you make that 7 million could just as well be 3.9million.

Does that make a difference? Well - it means the government have a good head start on their target to cut piracy 70% for one thing ;-) ... but.... 3,9 million is still a pretty big number.
What does it mean exactly?

If you think of the UK population of 61.4 million it starts to sound like a small slice of society. But think again... there are only 26million households in the UK.. and in 2008 (when the estimate was made) only 16million households had internet access. That's around one pirate for every four households....... (which doesn't quite mean one in four households has a pirate).

Even without seven million to talk about you start to see what a broad slice of the population it is that doesn't accept the establishment view of copyright. And when we start to talk about cutting people off from the internet how many families are potentially affected by that policy.

You could also ponder how many families sit down on a Frday night to watch a film that little Darren has just downloaded... Now how many pirates have you got?!?

The PPUK Facebook group has now passed 6 000 members and continues to grow...

Piratpartiet now has over 50 000 members and is the third largest political party in Sweden.

While in Germany, where there are soon to be new elections, 38.8% of students support Piratpartei - double the support of any of the mainstream parties.

Bloggande på:Piratpartiet,
Also blogging on: Pirate Party,