While I’m no expert, when I think of pirates both historical and fictional, they are all males. Piracy on the high seas just doesn’t seem like an inherently female activity. And apparently, piracy on the Internet isn’t exactly a girl thing either.

According to a survey on file sharing conducted by a Swedish university, only 5% of the 75,000 respondents were females. The survey, a joint venture between Lund University and The Pirate Bay, was aimed at gauging how the Internet has changed social norms and how such changes should be reflected in the law.

The final results of the survey will not be made available until November, but some data has been released. In probably the least shocking scientific finding this year, the numbers show that the biggest downloaders are men aged 18-24. Something interesting the data does reveal, though, is that if you are someone who downloads, it doesn’t matter your age, sex, or nationality as the basic habits are all extremely similar.

In terms of what is being downloaded, the only real difference in downloading habits comes in games – men were twice as likely to download games as women. And look out MPAA – movies are the files most people want to download as 80% of respondents said they download them.

So what do the preliminary results of this study show? First, I would have expected that females would have downloaded at least a bit more. I’m not sure if this accurately reflects the online habits of females or whether women just didn’t take part in the survey (although 75,000 is a pretty big sample size.) I think if the survey was broader, and about who watches/listens to/otherwise uses downloaded media, the gap between the sexes would surely be closed.

Another interesting aspect is that it doesn’t matter what part of the world you are from, if you’re going to download, your habits are going to basically be the same. This might be an indication that downloading isn’t necessarily an “American thing” or any other country’s thing, but more a human thing when given an Internet connection and access to millions of files. It seems to me that if governments are serious about protecting intellectual property, a good first step would be to start making laws consistent with the rest of the world. And even then, those actions may be too late.