Telefónica Public Policy & Telefónica España Regulatory teams
A recent survey undertaken for the French HADOPI agency (you can find the slides in a more reader-friendly format here) has found some interesting results. For those not familiar with it, HADOPI was created to implement the French law which aimed to cut down on illegal downloading via a graduated response mechanism which could ultimately lead to users having their internet connections suspended.
Some of the findings in this detailed survey which were interesting to me:
- There is a general awareness of HADOPI and the new law among users, but fewer than half think that it has an effect on their rate of illegal downloading;
- Those who download illegally are also spending more on legal content than those who don’t – an average of 30 euros a month, as opposed to 23 euros;
- The biggest obstacles to using legal content for French consumers was the perceived high price of content online and the lack of access to the content they wanted.
Some interesting conclusions based on behaviour following a controversial law, and which should be taken into account wherever there are discussions about fighting illegal downloading and encouraging the purchase of legal content.
