A new study conducted by The Barna Group for the Gospel Music Association (GMA) suggests that, despite the widespread coverage of the legal arguments and fight against piracy, most young consumers possess no moral qualms about obtaining music illegally.

The vast majority of teens, 86%, believes that music piracy-including copying a CD for a friend or downloading nonpromotional music online for free-either is morally acceptable or is not even a moral issue. Four out of five teenagers (80%) have engaged in some type of music piracy in the past six months, including making copies of CDs, downloading music illegally or uploading their own music files to the Internet to share with others. Just 8% claim that such activities are morally wrong.

The study also discovered that the piracy-related views and behaviors of born-again Christian teens are nearly the same as those of non-born-again young people.

Read the full study online at www.barna.org, and look for a full report with reactions from the industry in the June 1 edition of Christian Retailing.