English 
Italiano On March 23, 2017 EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) published a report concerning the perception of intellectual property rights by the European citizens.
It is interesting to see that, although the study was carried out in 2016, and therefore during a period of economic crisis, 97% of the surveyed affirmed that it is important that inventors, creators and artists can protect their rights and receive a remuneration for their work.
According to the results of the EU study, 70% of European surveyed think that there are not reasons that can justify the purchase of counterfeit products.
At the same time, however, we can see some inconsistencies in European Union citizens’ behavior with respect to the opinions expressed during the interviews. In particular, young people between 15 and 24 years old are the largest buyers of fake.
A high percentage of European citizens (78%, although with a reduction of 3% compared to the previous report of EUIPO, carried out in 2013) believes that the purchase of counterfeit products is damaging to the economy and employment, while almost half (48%) does not believe that the purchase of counterfeit products discourage innovation.
There is a reduction in the percentage of those who believe that buying counterfeit products can be classified as “smart buy” or “act of protest”, from 38% in 2013 to 34% today.
With regard, finally, to the protection of copyright, while it decreases of 7% and is about of 35% the number of those who consider it is acceptable to download illegally contents from internet if done for personal use, it increases of 9%, reaching 31%, the number of those who think that it is acceptable to get contents from the internet illegally, if there are not readily and available legal alternatives.
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