Nearly a quarter of New Zealanders have illegally downloaded content from the internet, despite knowing they should have paid for it.

According to a new independent survey from Horizon Research, 21 out of 100 Kiwis admitted to illegal online habits, equating to a whopping 676,600 people across the country.

In the past week alone, the Auckland-based research firm reports 222,300 adults overall have illegally downloaded when knowing they should have paid.

Delving deeper into illegal downloading in New Zealand, Grant McInman, Manager, Horizon Research says 9 out of 100 aren’t sure whether they have ever downloaded content from the internet illegally or not, while 35 out 100 say they download legally by paying for content.

The survey results find that:

• 16.3% of adults say they have used a file sharing service to download content like music, movies, television shows, videos, books or other content from the internet illegally without paying when they know they should have.

• 18.6% say they have illegally downloaded in other ways without paying when they know they should have.

File sharing…

Of the 519,900 adults who’ve illegally downloaded using a file sharing service, 30.8% (152,700) have done so in the past week, with 31% (161,500) over a year ago.

In research released this week, of the 595,800 adults who say they have illegally downloaded content in other ways knowing they should have paid, 33% (217,800) say they have done this in the past week and 23% (139,600) say they last did this more than a year ago.

In contrast…

McInman reports that 35.3% (the equivalent of 1,1,129,600 adults) have downloaded legally by paying with 6.5% of all, adults (207,700) downloading legally in the past week.

Furthermore, some 5.8% have used a “virtual tunnel”, disguising their geographical location in order to buy content from overseas content providers, like Netflix, in the past week - the equivalent of 185,500 adults.

According to McInman, 48% of them, equivalent to 89,550, used a “virtual tunnel” in the past week.

The results, from a survey of 2,688 adults nationwide conducted between March 20 and April 3, 2014, indicate the scale of illegal downloading facing content owners.

By age group, 18-24 year-olds have the largest number knowingly illegally downloading content (34.0%) compared with just 4.5% and 2.1% respectively for those aged 65-74 years and 75 years or older.

Below are product rankings for content downloaded by Kiwis (either legally or illegally):

• Music - (50.3% of adults have downloaded them at some time)

• Videos - 30.9%

• TV programmes - 28.6%

• Books - 26.9%

Do you illegally download content? Tell us why in the comments below