Do new studies and stats reveal the true cost of illegal downloading to the UK economy?

New research commissioned by the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP) has revealed that at least seven million people download illegal content in the UK, with shared content on one Peer-to-Peer network worth a staggering £12bn annually.

The report also highlights that the ability to download or share content is getting easier with faster technologies and increased storage space.

Much has been made of new 50 megabytes-per-second broadband access, which can reportedly deliver 200 MP3 music files in five minutes, a DVD of Star Wars in three minutes and the complete digitalised works of Charles Dickens in less than 10 minutes, according to the study.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) estimates that there were 890m illegal free music downloads through file-sharing in the UK in 2007 compared with 140m paid downloads. Clearly, this places illegal downloading at a ratio of six to one without taking into account offline sharing such as burning CDs etc.

The SABIP report admitted that downloading for free is now woven into UK culture, especially amongst younger consumers, stating that music downloading has "become part and parcel of the social fabric of our society despite its illegal status".

The report also admits that it may be difficult to reverse attitudes towards free downloading, as there was "huge confusion" about what is and is not legal.

It claims that 70% of those aged 15-24 did not feel guilty about downloading music for free from the Internet and 61% of the age group did not feel they should have to pay for the music they listen to, according to a survey.

The report estimates that creative industries in total provide approximately 8% of British Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Digital copying of products apparently resulted in the estimated loss of 4,000 jobs in 2004.

Have your say: Is there really a “huge confusion” between what is legal and illegal content or is it quite categorical? Is the way forward to provide online ‘Speed Humps’ in a similar way to what the film industry are now considering? Where do you stand on legitimate ownership of music downloads? Will it be impossible to reverse attitudes about entitlement to free content? What will the long term effects on creative industries be?