The Pew Research Center has released a report in its “Pew Internet and American Life” series. The report is available here. The introduction states (emphasis mine):
“The struggle to enforce copyright laws in the digital age continues to be an uphill battle for content owners. Data gathered from Pew Internet & American Life Project surveys fielded during March – May of 2003 show that a striking 67% of Internet users who download music say they do not care about whether the music they have downloaded is copyrighted. A little over a quarter of these music downloaders – 27% – say they do care, and 6% said they dont have a position or know enough about the issue.
The number of downloaders who say they dont care about copyright has increased since July-August 2000, when 61% of a smaller number of downloaders said they didnt care about the copyright status of their music files.
Of those Internet users who share files online (such as music or video) with others, 65% say they do not care whether the files they share are copyrighted or not. Thirty percent say they do care about the copyright status of the files they share, and 5% said they dont know or dont have a position. “