Overview

The struggle to enforce copyright laws in the digital age continues to be an uphill battle for content owners. Americans’ attitude towards copyrighted material online has remained dismissive, even amidst widespread media coverage and legal action aimed at educating the public about the threat file-sharing poses to the intellectual property industries. Over time, the music downloading audience has grown to roughly 35 million American adults while about 26 million say they share files online. Young adults and full-time students are among the most likely to download or share files and are also the least likely to say they care about copyright.