Digital Home Thoughts: Are Illegal Downloads on the Way Out?

"Their newest report is interesting because it claims that children (ages 8 to 18 ) are now downloading significantly less music, movies, and software than they were only two years ago. The study shows that 57 percent of all respondents said that they have never downloaded media from the Internet without paying for it, up from 40 percent in 2004. In every area that the study examined, there has been a sharp drop in the last two years. Gaming downloads among children declined from 32 percent to 25 percent, movie downloads fell from 17 percent to 10 percent, and music downloads plummeted significantly, from 53 percent in 2004 to 32 percent today. This sounds like great news all around for content creators, but there's a fairly big hitch: downloading increases with age. While most eight-year-olds don't download music, for instance (only nine percent do so), most 18-year-olds do (52 percent). The same trend can be seen in most categories, leading the BSA to argue that "as kids grow older, they begin to view cyberspace as a virtual 'wild, wild West'.""

Yeah, I agree. While the younger kids are honest about their internet and media usage, most likely due to parental supervision, they are clearly not keeping up with this trend as they grow up. Although, the other reasons for the decline in illegal downloads could probably be attributed to the facts that not only has information about illegal downloads become more common place but it has also become a lot easier to pay for the downloads through services like iTunes, Rhapsody, Google Video, etc.