A recent survey, commissioned by anti-piracy company Digimarc, has revealed that people illegally downloading ebooks are normally aged between 30 and 44 and have a household income of $60,000-$99,000.
Previously, it was suggested that pirates were much younger and less wealthy, but the latest results show that 41% of all adult pirates fall into the category 18-29 years old, while 47% fall into the 30 to 44-year-old bracket. The remaining 12% are older than 45. The pirates’ income also comes as a surprise – while price for the books is often cited as a factor that justifies piracy, it now turns out that richer persons are generally more likely to download content for free: more than 1/3 of pirates claim to earn between $60k and $99k a year. Another 1/3 has income over $100k.
Most pirates are also well-educated: over 70% have either graduated from college or have post graduate degree. In other words, a typical e-book pirate is older wealthy person with a good education – similar to a typical ebook reader. They usually obtain their eBook fix from public torrent sites (including The Pirate Bay) and cyberlocker services like 4shared or Uploaded, as well as by swapping eBooks with friends via instant messaging, email, hosting services and even flash drives. Some even acquire eBooks from eBay.
As statistics shows, the majority of pirates can pay for content, which makes us believe that convenience becomes the number one driver for Internet users obtaining content from torrent sites. At the same time, many pirates still use legal resources to acquire ebooks: for example, Amazon and iTunes. 1/3 of readers go directly to the publishers’ own websites.
