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by Tom Wonder
Washington Internet Daily
June 22, 2005
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On the issue of file sharing, Americans
divide sharply along age lines with those 50 and older as opposed to
file sharing, at 51%, as people 20-29 in favor, at 50%, said Toronto-based
Solutions Research Group. Internet users 12-29 think file sharing should
be allowed -- 54% in favor to 34% against -- to roughly the same extent
older users think it should be outlawed -- 51% of people think it should
outlawed while 27% think it should be allowed. Results in the general
population were less clear, with 45% in favor of outlawing file sharing
and 39% in favor of allowing it, which falls within the survey’s
± 3.0 margin of error.
The generational divide is “striking”, said Kaan Yigit,
pres. of Solutions Research. An age gap is “not a huge surprise,
because in our research we’ve always noticed deep divisions,”
but its size illustrates the different ways the young and old view intellectual
property, Yigit told Washington Internet Daily. Older generations tend
to favor stronger property rights due to their upbringing, compared
with children of the Internet, he said. An RIAA spokesman agreed, saying
“unfortunately we have seen a full generation brought up in a
world with no definition of what you could and could not do online.”
The large gap on file sharing recalls experiences with other new technologies,
said Distributed Computing Industry Assn. (DCIA) CEO Mark Lafferty.
“Part of it, we believe, is the basic technophobia of older people,”
he said. “Once [P2P] gets to be more user-friendly, it’ll
be accepted.” RazorPop CEO Marc Friedman said content industry
PR efforts have implanted the viewpoint that P2P is wrong. Those most
swayed by industry PR are less familiar with the technology, he said.
“If consumers are knowledgeable about the Internet and P2P, they
would understand the truth of what’s going” rather than
the content industry’s “PR machine,” he said.
Internet users were split 44% to 44% on whether to outlaw file sharing,
Solutions Research said. Among people who downloaded free or paid music
at least once, a 63% to 27% difference emerged in favor of allowing
file sharing. In that group, people who paid for songs online still
were for allowing file sharing 52% to 35%. The survey showed regional
differences. People in the Northeast favored allowing file sharing 43%
to 33%, but in the more conservative South half opposed file sharing,
with only 39% in favor. The West, despite having the more liberal Pacific
coast states, favored making file sharing illegal 51% to 32%, Solutions
Research said.
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