Statistics show that these people usually grow up in an environment where illegal sending of content is not considered a crime, writes “ŽMONĖs Cinema” in a press release.
A public survey commissioned by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture conducted in July of this year revealed that four out of ten residents of the country use illegal content at least sometimes, and a quarter do so regularly. The research was carried out by UAB “KOG institutas” (KOG Institute) and UAB “Norstat LT”.
Four out of ten of the country’s population use illegal content at least sometimes.
Lithuania remains among the “leading” countries of the European Union in terms of consumption of illegal digital content. According to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) 2021 according to the study, Lithuania ranked third in the European Union in terms of the consumption of illegal content that violates the rights of copyright holders.
Young people are better educated, but there are no tangible results yet
Although the respondents representing the youth (aged 14-29) stated that they see various advertisements directed against the consumption of illegal content more often, the consumption of illegal content is higher among them. Among persons aged 30 and older, the number of those who indicated that they use pirated content regularly or sometimes reached 40 percent, and among young people this number reached even 58 percent.
Other previously conducted studies in Lithuania and abroad show the same thing: young people use illegal content more actively than older Lithuanian residents. As a result, in the framework of the latest research commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, separate attention was paid to the analysis of the consumption habits of illegal content among young people aged 14-29.
This age group’s use of online content differs from all survey participants – although movies, series, TV shows, video content and music are the most used digital content, as in the general population, these categories of digital content are used even more actively among young people.
In addition, many illegal activities seem more acceptable to young people.
Such an attitude can also be influenced by attitudes prevailing in the family. The study found that only 4 out of 10 parents have discussed the issue of illegal content with their children, and a quarter do not know if their underage children are using illegal content online. Also, it was noticed that behavior towards illegal content and attitudes in the family tend to coincide – if parents use illegal content, their children tend to choose it as well, and the parents of children who do not use illegal content more often express disapproval of the use of such content.
This shows tolerance for the use of illegal content and, at the same time, existing opportunities to change attitudes in perhaps the most important socialization environment – on the one hand, it would be possible to shape youth attitudes through parents, and on the other hand, to encourage children to convey the message to the family through school campaigns.
The study revealed that people between the ages of 14 and 29 search for illegal content mostly through Google or other search engines; or go directly to a website that they know provides illegal content and usually watch or listen to the content on the website. This group uses paid access passwords or software licenses obtained from others more often than all respondents. This shows that young people put more effort into accessing illegal content than all the study participants.
The most relevant are pirated films and TV series
Among the illegal content consumed in Lithuania, films, series, television shows, and videos are leading.
As many as 33 percent watch pirated movies, series, TV shows or videos. respondents. In addition, the study revealed that about a quarter of the respondents are not able to easily distinguish between legal and illegal sources, so the real number of users of illegal content may be even higher.
About a quarter of the respondents are not able to easily distinguish between legal and illegal sources.
Home cinema platforms “People Cinema”which offers easily accessible, high-quality and legal cinema, director Šarūnas Dmukauskas notes that although legal content in Lithuania is becoming more and more accessible, its diversity is expanding, unfortunately, in the last few years, a major breakthrough in the consumption of illegal content has not been noticed.
According to him, illegal movie websites, even though they often change their names and addresses, and are nowhere near comparable in quality, often surpass the big movie platforms in terms of popularity and number of users. The director of “Žmonės Cinema” concludes that the price of content is still a very important lever for Lithuanian viewers.
The aforementioned research commissioned by the Ministry of Culture of Lithuania, the results of which were presented to the public on October 10, confirms this conclusion. As many as 45 percent of all respondents indicated that consuming legal content is too expensive, including in the 14-29 age group.
Šarūnas Dmukauskas says that he is increasingly noticing the illegal uploading of content from websites to TV programs, and although this trend is more global, it does not overtake Lithuanian users either. In order for people to choose legal content, it is necessary to ensure the quality of the legal content offered.
As told by Sh. Dmukauskas, “ŽMONĖS Cinema” is distinguished by the fact that all content on this platform is curated, a lot of effort is put into preparing a grid of films, sorting them into collections, genres and themes: “We try to respond to the current affairs of the film world, we cooperate with film festivals and during them or from right after them, we provide our users with festival films. We also offer viewers unique and exclusive content, such as “Oars through the Atlantic”, “Jump” and so on.
Soon, we will be the first to show the films “Gardutė” and “Pietinia Kronikos” online with exclusive rights. As a platform for quality cinema, we focus on the discerning viewer who is looking for valuable content and does not want to get lost in the abundance of content.”
You should not expect quick changes
According to Sh. Dmukauskas, in the long run, the use of illegal websites will gradually decrease, but he does not predict rapid tectonic changes: “The film industry is very fragmented, content rights are often lost between different regions and platforms. I predict that there will be more niche platforms dominated by one or a few content topics as it becomes increasingly difficult for the user to choose from the vast amount of content.
I think it will become more and more difficult for illegal sites to retain users because of the constant pressure from the big market players who are relatively young (GO3 launched in late 2019). Illegal movie sites have been around for a long time (Linkomania since 2003) and had a 15-year vacuum that was a great opportunity for them to shape their audience and its habits. It will take a long time to change these habits.”
The final scenario is optimistic
The manager of “ŽMONĖS Cinema” positively assesses the fact that real penalties have started to be imposed on users of illegal content (Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission is currently responsible for imposing them), although, according to him, their scope is vanishingly small compared to the scale of consumption.
Sh. Dmukauskas points out that education is equally important, especially for young people and students: “We have a great opportunity to raise a generation without illegal content consumption, because content is available these days, you just need to form the right habit of using it responsibly.” At the moment, we are just implementing the project “Caution – it’s slippery!” together with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), aimed at educating Lithuanian youth that stealing intellectual property is unacceptable”.
Compared to the data of the Lithuanian public survey conducted in 2023, the overall level of piracy has slightly decreased this year, and this corresponds to an optimistic scenario, according to which it is expected that the consumption of illegal content will decrease, and people’s awareness and intolerance of such actions will increase.
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