-Britain is (slowly) turning its back on online piracy thanks to Netflix and Spotify-

[Jaguar]

PIRACY is gradually losing its appeal thanks to easy-to-use legal services like Netflix and Spotify, new statistics have shown.

Legal streaming is on the rise in the UK, research by the Intellectual Property Office has demonstrated.

Hugely popular subscription services like Netflix and Spotify continue to gain popularity amongst Britons, whilst the blanket ban on torrent websites like ThePirateBay make piracy increasingly difficult.

The UK Intellectual Property Office claims there has been a 10 per cent increase in the number of Britons using legal services, since 2013.

The survey also highlighted that 62 per cent of all UK internet users have downloaded or streamed music, TV shows, films, computer software, videogames or e-books.

That's up from 56 per cent in 2013.

Interestingly, the survey also showed that a staggering 54 per cent of all music streaming and downloads in the UK were accessed via YouTube.

A similar survey was conducted in Australia in parallel with the Intellectual Property Office study.

The research showed that while British and Australian users consumed online media at similar rates – illegal downloading for UK consumers was half the rate of their Australian counterparts.

However – despite the apparent increase in legal steaming in the UK, piracy is still rampant.

One in five Britons watch or download their media illegally, the Intellectual Property Office study revealed.

Intellectual Property Minister Baroness Neville Rolfe said: "It’s great news that a huge proportion of UK consumers are going online to enjoy Music, TV Shows, Video Games and e-books legally, supporting our creative industries to grow and showing the benefits of making legal content widely available.

"By building a clear picture of online streaming and downloading trends we can work with industry and international partners to tackle the problems of internet piracy and increase public awareness of the ways people can download and stream legally."

In an effort to tackle online piracy, the Conservative government has provided £5.56million in funding up to 2017 for Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit to tackle copyright infringement.