• Ars Technica, Wednesday, August 15, 2007 10:46 AM

"Everybody's doing it!" is oft-cited reason for why U.S. kids follow their peers. It also happens to be one of the big reasons so many European kids engage in Web piracy. A European Commission study surveyed two sets of young kids, 9-10 year-olds and 12-14 year-olds from each of the 27 EU member countries plus Norway (a hot bed of Web piracy) and Iceland. The vast majority of respondents said they knew downloading movies and video games from the Web for free is illegal, but are willing to justify it.

The older group was found to be more likely to illegally download media files, as were boys. These kids mostly understood when downloading was illegal, but are armed with excuses. The "everyone does it" line includes their parents.

The European Commission calls this an "implicit form of authorization" in the eyes of the children. Another excuse was that downloading for private use is better than reselling; another was that DVDs and CDs are too expensive. A smaller group in France felt that downloading media wouldn't be on the Internet if it were illegal. Sadly for media firms, the biggest deterrent to piracy for these kids was the possibility of contracting a virus.

Read the whole story at Ars Technica »