American and European Tablet Owners More Comfortable Paying for Content

We would love to know how much money is spent on content (newspaper and magazine articles, ebooks, etc.) accessible on any electronic device by people who CAN GET THE SAME content for via a library (or a library web site) without having to pay out of their wallet? In other words, people are paying direct to the content provider and pay again (indirectly) with their tax and tuition dollars. While ease of access and accessibility (so many users, so few ebooks) might play a role (would it?) we would bet a large number of users don’t consider the library option (no charge to their credit card) because they don’t know that it’s available in the first place. While this is changing to some degree with a growing awareness of library access to ebooks  we’re not sure about articles and other materials.
From Nielsen:

Even with a vast amount of free content available, tablet owners aren’t opposed to paying for the media they really want. Nielsen looked at willingness to purchase media content among tablet owners in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Italy and found that Americans are the most likely to pay for all categories of media content, except news.
Other findings:
• Most U.S. tablet owners have paid for downloaded music (62%) and books (58%) for usage on their device. Approximately half have paid for movies (51%).
• News is the top content category among the European tablet owners surveyed: 44 percent of tablet owners in Italy, 19 percent of tablet owners in the UK, and 15 percent of tablet owners in Germany say they have paid for tablet news content.
• Among the European countries, Italians are the most willing to pay for media content on their tablet.

Filed under: Libraries, News, Patrons and Users