Lowering the pirate flag: a TPB study of the factors influencing the intention to pay for movie streaming services

The launch of several movie streaming services has raised new questions about how online consumers deal with both legal and illegal options to obtain their desired products. This paper investigates the factors influencing consumers’ intentions to subscribe to online movie streaming services. These services have challenged the dramatic growth in their illegal counterpart in recent years. Taking the theory of planned behavior as a starting point, we extended existing models in the literature by incorporating factors that are specific to consumer behavior in this particular field. A quantitative survey was conducted for the Italian market, and structural equation modeling was used for data analysis. Attitudes, involvement with products, moral judgement and frequency of past behavior were found to be the most important factors in explaining the intention to pay for movie streaming services. The paper provides insights for policy makers and industry managers on the marketing communication strategies needed to minimize the risk of digital piracy

Consumers' intentions to subscribe to music streaming services

Digitalization has had a tremendous effect on the music industry and consequently the size of the industry has more than halved during the new millennium. The reason for the falling revenues of the industry lies in growing competition with other entertainment industries, digital music piracy, and poor service models that provide much less revenue for the industry as the previously dominant CD format. The industry is currently in transition from physical to digital and consumers need to be directed to use digital services that provide value to the industry. The most advanced and profitable digital service model today is the paid MaaS (Music as a Service) model, also known as subscription-based music streaming. Paid MaaS services are the fastest growing consumption model of music and their growth underpinned the first positive year for the recording industry in nearly two decades. So that the music industry could continue and accelerate its new-found growth, this thesis intends to find out the factors that affect consumers' behavioral intentions to adopt paid MaaS services. The research framework of this thesis is built from previous information services (IS) adoption literature, using effort expectancy (EE), facilitating conditions (FC), habit (HT), hedonic motivation (HM), perceived usefulness (PU), price value (PV), and social influence (SI) as hypothesized factors affecting consumers' behavioral intentions to use paid MaaS, as well as tangibility preference (TP), which is an extension to previous theories. The results of a survey with 136 participants indicate that HT, HM, and PV act as direct determinants of consumers' behavioral intention to use paid MaaS, explaining 53% of the variance in behavioral intention. The study has both, managerial and theoretical implications. It suggests that paid MaaS services should focus on providing their users a good price value and hedonic pleasure, while exploiting consumers' tendency for habitual system usage. On a theoretical side, this study sheds light on factors that determine the behavioral intention to use hedonic information systems. It suggests that in a highly hedonic IS system the determinant of PU loses its predictive power over behavioral intention and the importance of HM increases

Digital Piracy of MP3s: Consumer and Ethical Predispositions

Purpose – Illegal downloading of music has become an inexorable and rampant activity particularly among college students who have been little deterred by industry legal actions. The purpose of this research is to examine the present state of downloading and how ethical orientation and attitudes towards MP3 piracy impact such activities. The paper also aims to use ethical scenarios as a way of understanding the ethical reasoning in illegal downloading. Design/methodology/approach – Key research questions are proposed that are related to illegal downloading. A sample of 364 university students was used to examine each research question. Statistical results are reported. Findings – The results clearly show that downloading continues at a high rate today driven by a strong belief that it is not ethically wrong. Ethical orientation was found to be positively associated with awareness of the social cost of downloading, consequences of downloading, and ethical belief in downloading. Ethical scenarios show that ethical orientation is also associated with downloading activities and with stealing. Other results indicate that respondents believe that their peers are more prone to stealing music and downloading MP3s illegally. Fear of consequences does seem to have an impact on the propensity to download illegally. Practical implications – The paper contributes to inform industry representatives that appeals to ethics or guilt are not likely to deter illegal downloading measurably. The use of punishment for downloaders may have a short-term effect but other (more positive) measures are required. Originality/value – No research has examined downloading of MP3s in the manner developed in this paper. The paper contributes to a better understanding of consumer behavior among those who download. The results provide insight into a serious problem in the recording industry that is likely to persist in the distant future unless sound measures are developed

The roles of hypocrisy induction and self construal theory to stop illegal downloading

The purpose of the study is to reveal how hypocrisy induction and self-construal theory influence attitudes toward the public service announcement urging against illegal downloading and the willingness to stop illegal downloading. As time goes on, illegal downloading has been rampant due to the advancement of technology, which motivates the government agencies involved in protecting intellectual property to conduct various campaigns. However, despite of their constant efforts, the previous methods such as legal punishment or monetary penalties categorized as an external factor have been ineffective to prevent illegal downloading. Therefore, the current study suggested a new strategy using hypocrisy induction and self-construal theory considered as an internal factor which spontaneously enocourage people to stop illegal downloading. To test hypotheses, a 3 (types of hypocrisy: hypocrisy induction by independent means vs. hypocrisy induction by interdependent means vs. control) X 2 (types of message in public service announcements: a personal perspective vs. a social perspective) between-subjects design was employed. The results showed that hypocrisy induction significantly affected attitudes toward the public service announcements and the willingness to stop illegal downloading. In addition, the interaction effect between types of hypocrisy and types of message was significant. Therefore, the study concluded that hypocrisy induction and self-construal theory would play an important role in preventing illegal downloading.Advertisin

Pirate or subscriber? An exploratory study on italian consumers' music habits

Purpose of the paper: This paper analyzes Italian consumers’ music habits in terms of online piracy behaviors and their interest toward subscription-based music services (SBMS), i.e. services that for a small monthly fee give users legal access to vast music libraries across multiple devices. The objective is to try and profile a piracy-prone consumer and explore if SBMS could be a viable alternative to online music piracy in Italy, where the general piracy rate is very high. Methodology: The study is based on an empirical quantitative analysis through the collection of 505 questionnaires completed by Italian consumers. Findings: The paper highlights how Italian consumers reflect the ‘attitude-behavior gap’ in music consumption, as they perceive online music piracy as ethically wrong, yet they still show low preference for the legal, reasonably priced choice (such as SBMS). Younger, male, lower education, students have the highest propensity towards online piracy. In addition, consumers’ awareness, familiarity and interest in subscriptionbased music services are still very low. Research limitations: The limitations of the paper are linked mainly to the adapted scales, to the omission of alternative determinants of attitude towards piracy, to the composition of the sample and for analyzing only two subscription-based music services (Napster and Spotify). Managerial implications: The results call for greater efforts by music industry actors and public institutions to educate Italian consumers about the consequences of their online piracy behavior and the possible solutions offered by SBMS. Originality of the paper: This paper is the first to focus on Italian consumers’ music habits, their attitude and behavior towards online piracy and their interest toward subscription-based music services as a viable alternative

Limitation of Sales Warranties as an Alternative to Intellectual Property Rights: An Empirical Analysis of IPhone Warranties’ Deterrent Impact on Consumers

Apple\u27s success with the Apple iPhone has brought with it certain problems. Its success has engendered a community that has attempted to circumvent Apple\u27s exclusive service agreement with AT&T. Unfortunately for Apple (and similarly situated manufacturers), intellectual property law allows consumers to alter their products so as to circumvent relationships that manufacturers may have with others. The patent and copyright law first sale doctrine allows consumers to manipulate a product after it is purchased. As a result, manufacturers are increasingly turning to alternatives to intellectual property to secure control over the device after the sale. One such alternative is the exclusion of warranty under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. This iBrief considers whether limitation of warranties have the deterrence effect manufacturers desire. Said differently, it considers whether manufacturers can use warranty limitations to prevent consumers from using their products in an unauthorized manner. The iBrief presents a behavioral model based on the Triandis model of planned behavior and enhances the model by accounting for likely and unlikely benefits and detriments. The model suggests that participants weigh the probability and magnitude of the detriment against the probability and magnitude of the beneficial impact when making the decision to engage in technological piracy. This model, considered with other empirical evidence, suggests that Apple\u27s warranty could be a stronger deterrent for consumers than civil liability. The iBrief concludes that manufacturers can better protect their post-sale expectation of profits by raising consumer awareness of their warranty\u27s quality and by raising awareness of the consequences for using the product in a way that is outside the terms of the consumers\u27 authorized use

Understanding today’s music acquisition mix: a latent class analysis of consumers’ combined use of music platforms

In response to diversifying music delivery modes, consumers increasingly combine various music platforms, both online and offline, legal and illegal, and free or paying. Based on survey data (N = 685), the current study segments consumers in terms of the combination of music delivery modes they use. We identify four latent classes based on their usage frequency of purchasing CDs, copying CDs, streaming music, streaming music videos, peer-to-peer file sharing, and purchased downloading. All-round users (9.9 %) use most or all acquisition modes, but at a low frequency. Traditionalist (33.7 %) typically makes no use of any of the acquisition modes except buying CDs. Streamers-downloaders (20.7 %) use several acquisition modes intensively, especially streaming (video and/or music only) and downloading (legal and illegal). Light users (35.6 %) also use multiple acquisition modes, but less frequently. We draw theoretical and practical implications, discuss limitations, and suggest ideas for future research

The Determinants of Music Piracy in a Sample of College Students

Why do some individuals pirate digital music while others pay for it? Using data on a sample of undergraduate students, we study the determinants of music piracy by looking at whether a respondent’s last song was obtained illegally or not. In doing so, we incorporate (i) the individual-specific transactions costs that constitute the effective price of illegal music; and (ii) individual willingness to pay (WTP) for digital music, which we elicit using a simple field experiment and which we use to control for the unobserved heterogeneity of preferences between respondents. Our empirical results indicate that a respondent’s subjective probability of facing a lawsuit and her degree of morality both have a negative impact on the likelihood that her last song was obtained illegally. These results are robust whether WTP is estimated parametrically or nonparametrically. We conclude by discussing the practical implications of our findings.Music Piracy, Transactions Costs, Subjective Expectations

Pervasively Distributed Copyright Enforcement

In an effort to control flows of unauthorized information, the major copyright industries are pursuing a range of strategies designed to distribute copyright enforcement functions across a wide range of actors and to embed these functions within communications networks, protocols, and devices. Some of these strategies have received considerable academic and public scrutiny, but much less attention has been paid to the ways in which all of them overlap and intersect with one another. This article offers a framework for theorizing this process. The distributed extension of intellectual property enforcement into private spaces and throughout communications networks can be understood as a new, hybrid species of disciplinary regime that locates the justification for its pervasive reach in a permanent state of crisis. This hybrid regime derives its force neither primarily from centralized authority nor primarily from decentralized, internalized norms, but instead from a set of coordinated processes for authorizing flows of information. Although the success of this project is not yet assured, its odds of success are by no means remote as skeptics have suggested. Power to implement crisis management in the decentralized marketplace for digital content arises from a confluence of private and public interests and is amplified by the dynamics of technical standards processes. The emergent regime of pervasively distributed copyright enforcement has profound implications for the production of the networked information society

Economists’ Topsy-Turvy View of Piracy

Although it was once considered inevitable that unauthorized copying would harm copyright owners, it is now understood that this is not necessarily the case. The concept of indirect appropriability played an important role in shaping this newer understanding. In recent years, however, many economists seem to have taken the message from this new understanding too far, seeing gains to the copyright owners from unauthorized copying in every nook and cranny of the economy, when in reality the instances of such gains are likely to be rather limited. The current literature on this subject, which consists mainly of theoretical models, seems to be badly out of kilter. In this paper I attempt to explain some of the problems and try to provide the outlines of what I believe to be a more balanced and nuanced view of copying. It emphasizes the importance of examining various institutional and behavioral details of individual markets, which are often overlooked by researchers.copyright, indirect appropriability, copying, mp3, downloads