IP Outreach Research > IP Crime
Reference
| Title: | Factors that Influence the Intention to Pirate Software and Media |
| Author: | Timothy Paul Cronan [University of Arkansas], Sulaiman Al-Rafee [Kuwait University] |
| Source: | Journal of Business Ethics 78, no. 4: 527-545 |
| Year: | 2008 |
Details
| Subject/Type: | Piracy |
| Focus: | Books, Film, Music, Software |
| Country/Territory: | United States of America |
| Objective: | To identify factors that influence an individual's intention to pirate digital material and offer a better understanding of piracy behaviour. |
| Sample: | 280 students from a business college at a university in the Midwest |
| Methodology: | Questionnaire |
Main Findings
In decreasing order of importance, the following factors were found to influence the intention to pirate digital materials (music, movies, e-books and software):
- past piracy behaviour (subjects who have previously pirated digital material have a higher intention to pirate in the future, especially as the frequency of pirating increases);
- moral obligation (subjects who felt more guilt or moral obligation toward digital piracy have a lower intention to pirate);
- perceived behavioural control (subjects who have the skills and resources to pirate digital media have a higher intention of pirating digital media);
- attitude (subjects with higher, more favourable attitude toward piracy correspond to a greater intention to pirate digital materials).
Subjective norms (the individual’s perception of social pressure to perform or not to perform digital piracy) were not found to affect piracy intention.
The authors suggest that digital piracy can be combated by the following measures: first, by increasing the cost of piracy (making piracy less easy and convenient to accomplish) and decreasing the cost of the digital materials. Secondly, by informing society of how harmful piracy is: use targeted ads like the ones targeting smoking in young teenagers; use advertisements in movie theatres explaining how piracy affects the motion picture industry as well as individuals that are part of that industry; present different harmful aspects of piracy to consumers in the public opinion court; emphasise examples of appropriate behaviour; enforce newer ethical codes of conduct for information systems professionals that stress different types of piracy (beyond software piracy) and their effect on business and society as a whole.
[Date Added: Jan 20, 2009 ]