Canadians reject ISP levy, support file sharing

Most Canadians support file sharing but oppose any attempts to levy a fee on Internet Service Providers., according to a survey of 1395 Canadians conducted March 6-9 by Angus Reid Strategies. The online survey found that only 21% of respondents feel such a levy would be “a worthwhile initiative to help ensure that there will continue to be high quality Canadian TV programming in the future.” The vast majority (79%) submit that this type of levy would be “an unnecessary and/or inappropriate fee that would end up being passed along to consumers.” Nearly half of respondents (45%) say those who use peer-to-peer file sharing services to download music and movies are “just regular Internet users doing what people should be able to do on the Internet.”An additional 27% admit these people are “doing something they shouldn’t be doing” but say “it’s not a big deal.” In contrast, only 3% agree with what has often been the music industry’s position that file sharers “are criminals who should be punished by law.” As for an appropriate remedy, 25% of Canadians feel that “technology should be developed to stop this.” Peer-to-peer file sharing appears to be prevalent now in Canada. Among Canadian Internet users, 23% say they have downloaded free digital music files from peer-to-peer file sharing sites in the past 30 days, while just 12% have paid a fee to download digital music files from an online music store such as iTunes. Viewing video and TV programming online is even more widespread, with 65% of Canadian users saying they viewed short videos clips on their computers that they downloaded or streamed from the Internet in the past 30 days. Nearly one-third of respondents (32%) report watching full-length TV programs or movies on their computers from online sources in the past month. The survey is considered accurate +/- 2.6%, 19 times out of 20.Download the full releases and detailed tables here: http://www.angusreidstrategies.com/uploads/pages/pdfs/2009.03.12_CRTC.pdf http://www.angusreidstrategies.com/uploads/pages/pdfs/2009.03.12_FileSharing.pdf

Canadians reject ISP levy, support file sharing

Briefs | 03/16/2009 5:36 pm EDT

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