After successfully managing to ban such file-sharing services as The Pirate Bay and Newzbin2, the British government is now going to introduce a “three-strikes” system. However, Ofcom’s quarterly report reveals that the system may appear ineffective against digital piracy.

The report covers November 2012 – January 2013 and reveals that warning letters, which are sent by Internet service providers to their subscribers alleged of sharing copyrighted material and threaten to suspend their access to the web, would only have the desired effect on 16% of the users. In the meanwhile, the outfit’s previous report showed that 18% of subscribers shared illegal content at least once.

The report also reveals some facts that the content industry should consider before blocking websites at DNS level. Internet users agreed upon 3 vital changes which would make them stop violating copyright: 28% said that affordable legitimate services would make them stop from downloading unauthorized material, 24% said they needed a system which clearly determined which material is legitimate and which is not, while 22% agreed that availability is an important issue that urges people to pirate.

In addition, over 40% of all Internet consumers admitted that they weren’t particularly confident about what was legitimate online and what wasn’t. The research found out that for music, movies and TV programs, users who chose both legitimate and unauthorized content spent more on that particular content type than people who consumed the content 100% either way. There are many reasons why this happens. The statistics shows that almost 50% choose illegal content because it is free, 40% appreciated convenience, and 36% also mentioned that it is fast. There are also many ways to access the illegal content. The most popular source of pirated content is peer-to-peer, with 35% Internet users preferring the decentralized method. In the meanwhile, cyberlockers account only for 12%.

The experts believe that the results of the research should bring further changes to the Obligations Code. The industry and the government have to understand that the new legislation should be mutually beneficial, but for some reason they don’t.