Counterfeits and Online Piracy: Consumer Attitudes Towards Intellectual Property
On the occasion of World Anti-Counterfeiting Day, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) is releasing its Intellectual Property Perception Study 2023. For the study more than 25,000 interviews were conducted, questioning Europeans on their knowledge of and attitudes towards the concept of intellectual property. As a member of the EUIPO Observatory, the European Consumer Centres Network consulted in this study at various stages.
Intellectual Property
A clear majority of Europeans (83%) indicates they have a good or very good understanding of what the concept of ‘intellectual property’ means. A large majority agrees on the importance of respecting intellectual property law, mainly as this is important to protect the rights and income of inventors, publishers, creators and artists (93%).
Although there is also a general consensus among consumers that intellectual property laws protect the quality of products and services (81%), it is interesting to see that consumers do not consider themselves to be the main beneficiaries of this protection (only 8%).
Counterfeit Goods
Most Europeans are aware buying counterfeit goods can have negative effects and reject justifications for buying counterfeit goods. Most consumers see the purchase of these goods as supporting unethical behaviour (83%) and criminal organisations (80%). Fewer respondents agree that counterfeit goods pose a threat to health and safety (66%).
Acceptance of buying counterfeit goods differs per age group: younger consumers tend to be more open to justifications for purchasing fake products. Better affordability remains the most mentioned and accepted reason. On average 1 in 3 Europeans find it acceptable to buy counterfeit products if the price of the original is too high. For respondents between 15 and 24 years of age, this acceptance rate is 1 in 2.
13% of buyers have intentionally purchased a counterfeit product in the past 12 months (with higher percentages for younger buyers). 39% of Europeans have wondered if something they have bought was genuine or a counterfeit.
Pirated Online Content
Consumer attitudes and behaviour regarding illegal digital content resemble those regarding counterfeit goods. In general, most Europeans do not support obtaining digital content from illegal sources. However, acceptance is considerably higher among younger age groups. While only 18% of Europeans aged 65 and over approve of accessing pirated content if the price of the content is too high, acceptance rises to 46% for respondents between 15 and 24.
Results show that Europeans are very open to the use of legal offers of digital content. 80% of Europeans indicate they prefer legal sources to illegal alternatives, provided an affordable legal option is available. Awareness of legal online offers is also high: 9 in 10 are aware of at least one type of legal content offer available in their country.
14% of respondents admit to having used illegal sources of digital content intentionally.
Full report
Find the full report, executive summary, infographics and more on the EUIPO website. This information is available in English and other official EU languages.
The European Consumer Centres Network
ECCs regularly receive questions and complaints from consumers dealing with counterfeit purchases. Centres also receive questions and complaints about illegal streaming or downloading and copyright infringement penalties. ECC-Net is not always able to mediate in these cases as they often involve companies based outside of the EU or fraudulent businesses that we cannot contact. Most serious counterfeit cases involve safety risks and therefore fall under the product liability directive, which ECC-Net does not work with.
- Last year ECC-Net saw nearly 3500 cases of fraud and nearly 500 cases of unsafe products. 56 cases were labelled counterfeit.
- In 2020, ECC Austria launched a campaign informing consumers about the dangers of illegal streaming platforms, for which materials were made available in all EU languages.
- In 2017, ECC-Net published a report about the impact of counterfeiting on online consumer rights in Europe. The report explains the negative consequences of buying counterfeit goods and gives advice on how to avoid buying fake products on the internet.