世論 What Japan Thinks

CNET Japan recently published the results of a survey conducted by a new-to-me research company, Media Interactive, regarding the video sharing site “YouTube”. The complete survey is not available, so this report may appear to be incomplete in parts. My apologies in advance. Recently the issue of respecting copyright on YouTube in Japan has become quite a major topic.

Over the first two days of February they interviewed 2,186 members of their internet monitor group (sign up here for iResearch and perhaps win a Wii, iPod, DS, etc) over the age of 18 by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. No demographic information is available, however.

From the sample, 36.9% had listened or watched media from YouTube, and in addition 11.1% hadn’t used it, but knew the name and the kind of contents it hosted. 36.6% didn’t know anything about YouTube, and the remaining 15.4% were presumably those who had just heard the name.

When the YouTube users were asked how they learnt about it, the top answer was from friends or family, with 21.2% hearing about it first from them. Next was 19.8% learning through internet news, 17.5% from a blog, and 16.4% from 2 channel or other bulletin board. Around 70% of these users had also informed or discussed YouTube with other people, indicating a high degree of viral spread.

When asked what sort of stuff they watched on YouTube, 62.7% said they watched Japanese television programs. Next was 50.1% watching home videos or other user-created amateur content, then 35.6% watching promotional Japanese music videos. Indeed, 32.5% said that Japanese television programs was the one type of contents they watched the most.

When asked about the attractions of YouTube, 41.1% said it was being able to watch user-created amateur content, then 36.9% chose the ability to watch Japanese television programs and advertisement, and 33.6% said it was the ability to watch television programs they missed. I think the second answer implies being able to rewatch favourite or topical shows, the third implies catching up with programs one forgot to record.

When considering the copyright issue, around 70% said as it was just for personal entertainment they thought there wasn’t really a problem, and 6.3% said they didn’t think there was any particular problem with the site at all, making it just under four in five who think (or hope?) that there aren’t really any copyright problems. 18.2% explicitly said that there was a problem with copyright infringement.