Deterrence factors for copyright infringement online

The purpose of this study was to investigate deterrence factors for online file-sharing by analyzing different conditions that affect compliance with the law through survey of the students in a large university in Southern U.S. The findings show that certainty of punishment, stigma of the label, knowledge of the laws and consensus with the rule negatively correlated with both actual and likely future file-sharing activities of the user

The effects of an offender\u27s ethnicity as well as the type of crime committed, on public perceptions regarding seriousness, and the sentencing principles seen as most appropriate

Public opinion has been evidenced as exerting significant influence over the development of, and alteration to, policies dealing with offenders (Roberts, 1992). Research suggests that an offender\u27s ethnicity, as well as the seriousness of a crime, have a significant effect on public opinion regarding the appropriateness of an imposed sentence, and the goals of sentencing seen as most important (Herzog & Rattner, 2003). However whilst research in the United States and Europe has continued to expand, there is a significant lack of research directly related to the Australian context. The significant over-representation of Indigenous Australians in Australian prisons, potentially reflects some form of racial disparity in sentencing, that could be deeply grounded in the societal values held by the public (Weatherburn & Indermaur, 2004). It has been found that as the perceived severity of a crime increases, the public are more likely to support a punitive sentence (Tufts & Roberts, 2002). Similarly it has also been found that extralegal factors such as an offender\u27s race can also affect the publics\u27 views regarding the appropriateness of sentencing decisions made by judges (Case, 2008). Because of the significant influence public opinion holds over policy makers, and the potential for offender characteristics to negatively influence these perceptions, future research should focus on how firmly these perceptions are set in society. Furthermore, research should examine how the public could be educated to change these views through the use of widespread campaigns. The current study aimed to use an Australian representative sample to investigate how public opinions can be affected by such variables as an offender\u27s ethnicity, as well as the seriousness of a crime. The significant over-representation of Indigenous Australians in Australian prisons, and a lack of research directly related to the Western Australian context created a rationale for this study. The study involved a 2x2 (offender\u27s ethnicity x crime seriousness) mixed design, in a quantitative research approach, with opportunity for respondents to further explain their ratings. The study involved 1 07 participants who were each placed in two of four experimental conditions, and asked to read an experimentally manipulated scenario, and complete a questionnaire. Results indicated that there was no significant effect of offender\u27s ethnicity on participants\u27 views regarding the severity of sentence to be given, or the sentencing goals seen as most important. In contrast, results indicated a significant effect of crime type, with crimes described as physically violent such as murder, viewed as most serious, as opposed to crimes that did not cause physical injury to the victim, such as burglary. Furthermore, results indicated that severity of a crime did not influence the sentencing goals seen as most important, with retribution preferred by participant for both murder and burglary

Legal Literacy and Users’ Awareness of Privacy, Data Protection and Copyright Legislation in the Web 2.0 Era

Web 2.0 offers an easy way for individuals to share any kind of content. The users’ new role of being a content producer is associated with the responsibility to observe the relevant law. In this article, relevant regulations of the German and Austrian law are presented. In an attempt to understand the factors that influence users’ lawful behavior, the presented research examines the effects of legal literacy, awareness and lawful attitude on lawful and unlawful actions. The empirical study shows results from a survey of 1,134 students from three different faculties. Regression and mediation analyses were used to analyze the effects. The results indicate that legal literacy has a negative direct influence on lawful behavior, while lawful attitude shows a positive effect among Austrian students. Furthermore, legal awareness has a stronger effect on lawful attitude than legal literacy

Fairness, Copyright, and Video Games: Hate the Game, Not the Player

Creative communities often rely on social norms to regulate the production of creative content. Yet while an emerging body of literature has focused on isolated accounts of social norms operating in discrete, small-scale creative industries, no research to date has explored the social norms that pervade the world’s largest content microcosm—the sprawling video game community. Now a veritable global phenomenon, the video game industry has recently grown to eclipse the music and motion picture industries. But despite its meteoric rise, the video game industry has provoked little attention from copyright scholars. This Article is the first to explore the shifting role of copyright law in the gaming community, where game developers are increasingly using a complex amalgam of legal and nonlegal tools to regulate creative output. Based on an in-depth analysis of the extralegal norms that govern creative content in the video game industry, this Article distills a richly detailed account of the relationship between video game creators and consumers. It maps the intricate web of interests underpinning the relationship between game developers and consumers; identifies a rich cadre of fairness-driven social norms that permeate the gaming community; and considers the implications of these findings for copyright law. The Article ultimately concludes that strong copyright protection is largely (though not entirely) inessential in areas where norms of fairness drive the production of creative content

Do Facts Speak Louder than Words? Understanding the Sources of Punishment Perceptions in Software Piracy Behavior

Software piracy has become a global problem that hinders the development of software industry. Therefore, it is important to understand the underlying mechanisms that drive users’ software piracy behavior. Previous literature on this issue heavily relied on the general deterrence theory (GDT) suggesting that two key punishment perceptions namely punishment severity and punishment certainty determined the software piracy behavior. However, how these punishment perceptions are formed has been rarely examined. To fill this research gap, from the social learning perspective, this study will investigate the three sources of punishment perceptions – policy awareness, personal experience and vicarious experience – and compare their relative strengths on punishment perceptions. Through a field survey with 253 subjects, we found that: (1) personal and vicarious experience have impacts on both punishment certainty and punishment severity; (2) policy awareness has influence only on punishment severity; and (3) personal and vicarious experience have greater impacts on punishment certainty than policy awareness. The implications for theory and practice are also discussed

Where do beliefs about music piracy come from and how are they shared?

Research suggests that those individuals engaging in music piracy have little concern for the potentially negative consequences of engaging in this illegal activity. This study aims to build on previous research which finds that sub-cultural piracy knowledge is effectively transmitted online. Explicitly, this study aims to observe the various justifications people forward to rationalise engagement in music piracy, in accordance with Sykes and Matza’s (1957) widely researched neutralization theory, and if techniques used to rationalize behaviours are shared amongst those individuals found to be discussing and engaging in music piracy online. The research examines naturally occurring discourse across three online settings, finding a widespread perception that there is ‘no harm done’ and that tips to work around web-blocking are exchanged online, including in public spaces such as Twitter. However, differences were found in the beliefs and attitudes of the sample. The study raises key conceptual issues about the theory used

Time Orientation, Rational Choice and Deterrence: an Information Systems Perspective

The present study examines General Deterrence Theory (GDT) and its parent, Rational Choice Theory (RCT), in an information security setting, assessing the behavioral intent to violate organizational policy under varying levels of certainty, severity and celerity of negative sanction. Also assessed is the individual computer user\u27s time orientation, as measured by the Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) instrument (Strathman et. al, 1994). How does rational consideration of violation rewards influence the impact of sanctions on individuals? How does time orientation impact intent to violate security policy? How do these operate in an IS context? These questions are examined by assessing the responses of university students (N = 443) to experimental manipulations of sanctions and rewards. Answering vignettes with the factorial survey method, intent to violate is assessed in a setting of Internet piracy of electronic textbooks while being monitored by computer security systems. Findings show that, although traditional GDT variables and reward impact intent to violate, CFC does not cause the hypothesized moderating effect on these variables. However, post-hoc analysis reveals a direct effect of time orientation on behavioral intent, as well as a weak moderating effect opposite of the hypotheses, indicating increased time orientation positively moderates, rather than negatively moderates, the impact of reward on intent to violate. Implications for theory and practice, and future research directions, are discussed