A great article in today’s Evening Standard highlights new research from New Media Age on the prevalence of illegal downloading among children.
The study - which is based upon interviews with more than 3,000 children - found that nearly 1 in 3 children between the age of 6 and 14 have illegally downloaded or streamed TV shows.
This is yet another example of why going down the disconnection route is simply unsustainable. Given the Government has been woefully slow in making the connection between anti-social behaviour (and indeed, much worse crimes) and the responsibilities parents have for controlling their children, quite how it expects to punish 6 year olds is beyond me.
An interesting characteristic of the research is that it highlighted the broadcaster’s scheduling decisions as a significant driving factor of piracy. Those shows broadcast in the US long before they hit UK screens were particularly prone to piracy.
In my view, another striking indictment of content owners and publishers trying to cling to business models, driven by seasonal advertising and viewing figures in the case of TV shows, when technology allows the audience to dictate their own schedules. If the flexibility in legal content isn’t there, they will turn to easily accessible alternatives.
It also illustrates a point that I’ve made before - legislation and Government will not be able to keep pace with the technological advances ever increasing IT literacy will bring, however much the current big industry players want to try. However punitive and badly targeted sanctions are, they will not make any real impact.
It’s time we recognised that and instead started to look at the opportunities the new environment will bring, which in the long run will transform our economy, our creative industries and even how we bring up children.