27 | 03 | 2017

The Study on “European Citizens and Intellectual Property – Perception, Awareness and Behaviour”

The study titled “European Citizens and Intellectual property – Perception, Awareness and Behaviour” conducted by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) during 2016 represents a follow-up to the earlier research carried out in 2013 providing comparative findings in relation to the ones of the first study.

78% of respondents agree with the statement that business entities basing their operation on intellectual property make a more significant contribution to the creation of jobs and economic growth; whereas 70% of the surveyed believe that nothing can justify the purchase of counterfeit goods. Still, buying counterfeit products seems to be tolerated more by young people, namely, 15% of the participants aged 15 to 24 admit having intentionally purchased counterfeit products within the last 12 months, which is by as much as 9% more than in 2013.

As to the access to copyright content, 83% of the respondents prefer legal sources whenever available and affordable, and 71% of those admitting to have illegally accessed copyright content cite to be willing to stop this behaviour if that content could be accessed legally at an acceptable price. It can be observed that there are by 7% more respondents who pay for legal access to copyright content than in 2013. Although there is an increase in using lawful sources in the Republic of Croatia as well, it needs to be pointed out that there is still a significantly lower proportion of respondents from the Republic of Croatia accessing copyright content legally in relation to the average in the European Union (14% of them compared to 27% of all European citizens accessing content from legal sources).

The executive summary of the study is translated into Croatian and it is available at the link, and the entire study can be accessed via the following link.