Torrent Poland. Who is the most pirated?

Pirate sites come in many categories and forms. Sometimes they look like primitive streaming services with a million ads, other times they are invitation-only and access to them is strictly rationed. In the case of torrents, there is both the international Pirate Bay and more exclusive variants.

Torrents are a decentralized method of exchanging files on the network (peer-to-peer, P2P), in which users download data directly from each other, rather than from a single server.

Widely available websites often offer low-quality content, often with dangerous bonuses in downloaded catalogues, and their offer is constantly being cut from tastier morsels. You can forget about important premieres of Polish cinema or Polish versions of films and series.

The situation is different with those “by invitation”, where even the community can add voice-overs to materials from Apple TV+, all files are available in 4K with DV and HDR, and full-length films can be downloaded even in file versions for cinemas, with a capacity exceeding 100-150 GB. One of such Polish websites conducted a survey among its users.

I will not analyze here what is appropriate in the case of torrents in the name of law and ethics. This is a river topic that could fill several other articles. However, I will focus on the numbers that are – needless to say – surprising.

The tested sample was 4,701 people, with the inability to vote multiple times and two-step login excluding any combinations (only one session on one device at a time).

As it turns out, the youngest users, that is declaring the age of 15-24 years old accounted for only 0.6% of the votes (only 27 people) and were the smallest group of platform users. They were on the opposite side people aged 35-44, with a share of as much as 54.5%and the group aged 45-54 followed them with more than half the share (23.3%).

I wouldn’t draw sweeping conclusions based on a non-standardized sample from just one torrent forum. However, when it comes to downloading high-quality torrents, it cannot be denied that Millennials are the leaders in Poland, followed by representatives of Generation X.

The survey does not answer the question whether younger people are satisfied with the lower quality of files, or whether they are less likely to reach for pirated content and prefer fully legal culture. The reason for the small percentage of the youngest accounts may also be prosaic – they have no idea about the existence of secret forums or older colleagues do not want to waste their invitations on them.