Music Downloading, File-sharing and Copyright: A Pew Internet Project Data Memo
More than two-thirds of Americans who swap songs online don't care whether the music is copyrighted, according to a study, despite the record industry's antipiracy crackdown.

The struggle to enforce copyright laws in the digital age continues to be an uphill battle for content owners. Data gathered from Pew Internet & American Life Project surveys fielded during March - May of 2003 show that a striking 67% of Internet users who download music say they do not care about whether the music they have downloaded is copyrighted. A little over a quarter of these music downloaders - 27% - say they do care, and 6% said they don’t have a position or know enough about the issue.

The number of downloaders who say they don’t care about copyright has increased since July-August 2000, when 61% of a smaller number of downloaders said they didn’t care about the copyright status of their music files.

Of those Internet users who share files online (such as music or video) with others, 65% say they do not care whether the files they share are copyrighted or not. Thirty percent say they do care about the copyright status of the files they share, and 5% said they don’t know or don’t have a position.

http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=96