Young people less worried about buying fakes, says EUIPO
Young people are less concerned about buying counterfeit goods than older generations, especially when the products are purchased online.
This is the finding of a pan-European study of citizens’ opinions on IP, undertaken by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and released yesterday, March 23.
More than 26,555 people aged 15 and over across the EU were surveyed.
Around 70% of the respondents believed that nothing could justify the purchase of counterfeit goods, and 78% said that buying counterfeits had a negative effect on businesses and jobs.
However, according to the study, there appears to be more tolerance for buying counterfeits among young people, with 15% of 15-24 year olds saying they had intentionally purchased a counterfeit product in the past 12 months.
This is an increase of 9% since 2013, when the EUIPO conducted a report into IP attitudes.
Additionally, 41% of young people said they thought it was acceptable to buy counterfeits if the original product was too expensive.
There was widespread support for IP rights, with the vast majority (97%) of EU citizens believing that it is important for inventors, creators and performing artists to protect their rights and be paid for their work.
A majority (83%) of respondents said they preferred to access digital content through legal or authorised services when affordable, while 71% of people who admitted using illegal sources said they would stop if they could access affordable options.
Since 2013, the number of people paying for content from legal sources has risen 7% (to 27%), and among the 15-24 age group 41% said they had paid to access content from legal sources, 8% higher than in 2013.
António Campinos, executive director of the EUIPO, said: “Overall, we see that support for IP rights is high among EU citizens.”
He added that more needed to be done to help young people in particular to understand the importance of IP to the economy and society, especially now when “encouraging innovation and creativity is increasingly the focus of economic policy across our EU”.
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