Why do people download materials they’re not authorized to download? The “industry” says because people want everything for free, but actual research in the  recently released Copy Culture In The US & Germany survey report from the American Assembly one small but especially interesting component is the list of reasons given for downloading TV shows and movies. The American responses were pretty evenly distributed among the various key reasons, and serve as a laundry list of things that piracy does just slightly better, or slightly more permissively, than most legitimate sources.

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