More than two-thirds of IT industry professionals have downloaded online content illegally, according to research collected at 3GSM World Congress.

The survey of 350 respondents by vendor Safenet found that 69 per cent of people admitted downloading or sharing content to their mobile phones or computers without checking for proper licensing or making a payment.

'Historically, download models which support legal file sharing were not easily accessible and were difficult for consumers to use,' said Simon Blake-Wilson, managing director, for digital rights management (DRM) at SafeNet.

'This has led to the proliferation of illegal download and sharing communities 'Worldwide, the music and motion picture industries alone lost a combined $22.6bn (£11.45bn) to piracy in 2005.'

Of the 69 per cent of executives who have downloaded illegal content, 70 per cent admit having done so intentionally, while the other 30 per cent state that their actions were accidental. Just 29 per cent of total respondents answered ‘never’ when asked if they have dealt with stolen digital goods, while two per cent said they ‘didn’t know’ if they have done it.

Some content distributors are now investing in Digital Rights Management (DRM), and according to a recent study, worldwide spending on the technology is growing, and will be over $1bn (£0.5bn) by the end of 2007.

'We are seeing more companies use next-generation technologies, but this investment needs to become the standard.' said Blake-Wilson. 'If inflexible and dated DRM solutions continue to be used to support the download model, illegal downloading will continue, the quality and variety of content from providers will drop, the model will fail, and everyone will lose.'