Most People Are Basically Thieves. (At Least Online.)

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The majority of people don’t have qualms about downloading material illegally, according to a new Danish study by the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit that looked at today’s moral standards.

Seventy percent of people surveyed said they saw nothing wrong with illicit file sharing as long as no one was making a profit. Sadly, my grade school business of downloading songs off Napster and “pressing” albums for a small fee would be frowned upon.

The survey asked people to rate on a scale from 1 to 10 how socially acceptable certain acts were. When it came to downloading bootlegged materials for personal use, 7 out of 10 people felt that it was generally okay with 15 to 20 percent of the group concluding that there was nothing wrong with it whatsoever. However, three-fourths of those who responded found it completely unacceptable to sell the material for a profit.

So I guess the anti-piracy ads, like the one below, don’t exactly make people feel guilty about watching X-Men: Wolverine before it was released sans all the special effects?

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5SmrHNWhak”&w=450%5D

[via Torrent Freak]

More on TIME.com:

Black Swan Wins! (According to Our Piracy Matrix)

Online Gaming’s Growing Piracy Problem

MPAA Sues Hotfile.com For Promoting Internet Piracy