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Despite repeated crackdowns on piracy in Denmark, local pirates seem unwilling to budge. The percentage of young Danes who have illegally downloaded or streamed content has exceeded 50%. The number of hackers active over the past year is also growing, with legitimate social media platforms acting as a convenient gateway.
Three years ago, the Danish police carried out a series of raids and arrestseffectively taking down several popular torrent trackers.
These actions were supported by the local anti-piracy group rights alliancefinally victory declarednoting that all notable pirate sites with Danish roots had reportedly been shut down.
Such statements can be dangerous as pirates can be quite resilient, but there is no doubt that the police actions and subsequent convictions left a mark. So does that mean online piracy has lost its appeal as well? According to a recent survey, that is not the case.
Study: Pirates Are Stubborn
He Danish Chamber of Commerce conducts a bi-annual study to track the hacking habits of locals. The most recent results for 2022 were just posted and show that illegal streaming and downloading are still prevalent.
Approximately a third of those surveyed (33%) admit to having downloaded or streamed something in the past and 15% have done so in the last year. The latest figure is up from 12% during the previous survey in 2020, and in 2018 it was just 10%.
These figures suggest that, if anything, the number of people downloading or streaming pirated content is increasing. It should be noted, however, that the most recent version also included people between the ages of 15 and 17, while the previous samples started from the age of 18.
Age certainly matters when it comes to online hacking. Young people tend to hack more and that is also reflected in the Danish survey.
56% of respondents have hacking experience
More than half (56%) of 15-29 year olds admit they have downloaded or viewed pirated content in the past. For the 30-39 age group, this figure is still relatively high at 52%, but in the senior 50-74 age category, it drops to just 14%.
Younger Danes not only hack more than their older counterparts, but the prevalence of hacking is also growing within the group. In 2020, fewer young Danes they said they had downloaded or streamed pirated content.
There are also substantial differences between men and women. Men are twice as likely to have hacked something in the past year than women. For some categories, the difference is even more pronounced. For example, men are five times more likely to pirate music.
social media
In recent years, authorities have managed to crack down on local file-sharing communities, but that 'distribution' role now appears to have shifted to social media platforms.
โIn the last two years, the police have handed out more [file-sharing] sanctions and investigated further in the area. However, the consequence has been that Danish hackers have moved their illegal behavior on the Internet to a new platform, social media,โ the survey notes.
Of the 15% who admit to hacking something in the last year, more than half used social media. YouTube is the most cited gateway to piracy, followed by Facebook, TikTok, messaging services, Instagram and Snapchat. As expected, the use of social networks is more frequent in the younger age cohort.
Commenting on these findings, Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund calls on social media platforms to take more responsibility โ or else.
Now that the police [Special Crime Unit] has stopped Danish file-sharing services, it's a real shame that illegal consumption is moving to legal social networks,โ says Fredenslund.
โThis demands greater efforts from these platforms both in terms of informing users and stopping the distribution of illegal content. It requires platforms to take an active role, and if there are platforms that are not up to that responsibility, it may be necessary to involve the authoritiesโ.
you wouldn't steal...
Casper Klynge, deputy director of the Danish Chamber of Commerce, points out that streaming piracy presents a big problem. He believes it deserves more attention from authorities as rampant 'theft' threatens future content production.
โStreaming digital content without paying is basically the same as stopping by a store and grabbing items to take home without paying for them,โ says Klynge.
It is not the first time that piracy has been compared to theft. Interestingly, however, the Chamber of Commerce study shows that many people see a difference between piracy and shoplifting.
Of all the people who took part in the survey, 89% believe that it is unacceptable to steal sweets from a store, while 'only' 63% consider it unacceptable to share digital content without the permission of rights holders.
