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Digital Life America decided to do a study into online media piracy and came up with some statistics like 18% of the online US population have pirated a full length movie online. Not surprisingly P2P is the biggest means of getting media and that most users don’t consider downloading a serious offense. The average P2P downloader is 29 years old, male with a pretty good track record of at least 16 movies stashed away on their computer.

Jacqui Cheng from Ars Technica thinks economics has more to do with illegal downloads as compared to moral attitudes. Basically, once a downloader factors risk, reward, convenience and price, the illegal download comes up tops over legal downloads. Apparently, only 20% of the online US community use paid-for media services and downloads. The study also reveals perceived limitations on media downloads (DRM, transcoding issues, compatibility) as well as cost drives users to find other ways of obtaining the same media sans limitations.

Read about it from Ars Technica here.