A Cross-National Experimental Examination of Software Piracy Behavior

Software piracy has been a problematic issue for several decades. While there is a significant body of research attempting to identify reasons why individuals pirate software, some factors influencing software piracy have yet to be studied completely. One such factor, addressed herein, is differences across countries. Cross-country comparisons of self-report rates of software piracy and aggregate rates of piracy have been published. Such studies have shown that software piracy rates vary by country. Explanations of these differences have been based on country level variables, such as gross national product (GDP). However, we are not aware of any study that has examined the role of social and individual factors to explain cross-country differences. We plan to examine the role of social desirability bias (SDB) as a possible explanatory factor for differences in reports of software piracy behavior in two countries: the United States and the United Arab Emirates

The Pirating Musician: An Examination into the Attitudes and Justifications toward Music Piracy among Musicians

Research on music piracy has always been conducted among non-musicians. This study sets out to investigate two aspects: (1) the intentions toward pirating music among undergraduate music students us-ing the Theory of Planned Behaviour, and (2) how rationalizations justify their ac-tions. A quantitative study looking at 200 music students across music colleges and universities in Malaysia was carried out in attempt to evaluate theory claims. Results show that the intention to pirate music is significantly related to perceived behav-ioural controls. More importantly, the re-sults show that music students admit to piracy without having a need to justify their criminal activity

The Pirating Musician: An Examination into the Attitudes and Justifications toward Music Piracy among Musicians

Research on music piracy has always been conducted among non-musicians. This study sets out to investigate two aspects: (1) the intentions toward pirating music among undergraduate music students us-ing the Theory of Planned Behaviour, and (2) how rationalizations justify their ac-tions. A quantitative study looking at 200 music students across music colleges and universities in Malaysia was carried out in attempt to evaluate theory claims. Results show that the intention to pirate music is significantly related to perceived behav-ioural controls. More importantly, the re-sults show that music students admit to piracy without having a need to justify their criminal activity

A Segmentation Study of Digital Pirates and Understanding the Effectiveness of Targeted Anti-Piracy Communication

The objective of this study is to improve the effectiveness of anti-piracy educational strategies by identifying unique digital pirate segments and delivering personalized campaign messages to the target audiences. In the first study, we introduced a segmentation study of digital pirates based on different types of risks involved in pirating activities. We identify four digital pirate segments (anti-pirates, hard-core pirates, performance-sensitive pirates, and finance-sensitive pirates), each demonstrating distinctive characteristics. Further profiling of the segments revealed different risk perceptions regarding gender and piracy experience. In the second study, we conduct an experiment to test the effects of targeted campaign messages for the newly identified pirating segments. Our results show that targeted piracy campaign messages have a significantly higher message persuasiveness, while they damage the attitude towards piracy. However, we found that the targeted piracy campaign messages have a marginal effect on changing the intention to pirate. Findings from this study offer useful implications for the design and implementation of anti-piracy educational campaigns. This article was published Open Access through the CCU Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund. The article was first published in the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research: https://doi.org/10.3390/jtaer1803007

Moderating Effect of Environment on Software Piracy: Exploring Determinants of Softlifting Attitude and Intention

Software piracy is a persistent and serious problem. In recent years, progress has been made to reduce software piracy. However, computer software is greatly susceptible to theft and market influences have recently contributed to a staggering $48 billion worldwide loss due to piracy (BSA, 2008). This paper outlines research in progress that will provide insight into software piracy attitude and intention. The purpose of the research is to investigate the moderating effect of environment on the relationship between behavioral beliefs and attitudes toward softlifting (i.e. the illegal duplication of copyrighted software by individuals) in three unique settings work, home, and school. This study promises to make several important contributions. The work should demonstrate the importance of including environment in theoretical models of the antecedents that influence softlifting attitude and intention. Results may also prove helpful to information systems professionals and educators in implementing measures to discourage software piracy

The Role of Morality in Digital Piracy: Understanding the Deterrent and Motivational Effects of Moral Reasoning in Different Piracy Contexts

Digital piracy has been a chronic issue in intellectual property protection. With the prevalence of online technologies, digital piracy has become even more rampant, as digital resources can now be accessed and disseminated easily through the Internet. While the antecedents of piracy behaviors have been studied for years, previous studies often focus on a specific type of behavior or pirated content and the findings are far from conclusive. They do not paint a coherent picture of the impacts of antecedents. In this study, we focus on the role of morality by revealing the different levels of moral reasoning that can both deter and motivate users’ piracy intentions. Furthermore, we differentiate between two types of piracy behaviors (unauthorized copying/downloading vs. unauthorized sharing) and two categories of digital products (application software vs. music/movies), so that the differential impacts of the various antecedents can be assessed and articulated more clearly. We empirically evaluated the models in the four piracy contexts using a sample of 3,426 survey participants from a sizable IT-literate society. Our findings indicate the conflicting roles of morality in piracy intention and demonstrate its differential impacts across the two types of piracy behaviors, which can be generalized across the two categories of digital products. Our study sheds new light on end users’ considerations in accessing and disseminating unauthorized digital content. It also informs the design of copyright protection policies and sanction measures with different levels of specificity

Tolerance Of Intellectual Property Theft

A survey of the public tested the proposition that the degree to which theft is tolerable or reprehensible is significantly determined by whether the owner/victim is or is not directly deprived by the theft. Respondents registered their degree of condemnation of theft of physical goods from an individual and from a company, as well as theft of physical property and of intellectual property by copying the content. The findings indicate that theft of physical, personal property is regarded as significantly more reprehensible than either theft of physical goods from a non-personal owner or theft of intellectual property by copying content

Media piracy in the Middle East: A case study of 2018 world cup

The main aim of this dissertation is to study the audience\u27s perception, awareness, behavior and attitude towards pirating live sports broadcasting media content in one of the Middle Eastern countries, which is Egypt. Moreover, this research fills a gap in the literature by investigating the media landscape in the Middle East in the age of digitalization, presenting an overview of media piracy, internet penetration and social media usage in the region in general and in Egypt in specific. It also studies the recent piracy activity in the case of 2018 FIFA World Cup in Egypt, by examining the legal and illegal broadcasters in the Middle East. Hence, the core of this study is the Egyptian media audiences and football fans who watched the 2018 tournament either by using legal methods which are subscribing to beIN sports packages, since it was the only legal broadcaster in the region, or using other illegal techniques such as illegal television cables and illegal live streaming from the internet. The study is conducted on a purposive sample of 460 young Egyptians; their age varies between 18-30 based on previous statistics, which revealed that the millennials in MENA are the ones who violate the intellectual property of the media the most and they are altering the media landscape in the region. The research follows a triangulation method by combining two research approaches; in-depth interviews as a qualitative methodology and surveys as a quantitative one. The theoretical framework used in this study is the Theory of Planned Behavior and Social Responsibility Theory. Also, this study revealed several different important factors that are related to pirating sports broadcasting media content, which are: 1) the impact of Egyptian youth on this phenomenon, 2) the factors that influence their intentions and behaviors to violate the intellectual property of the media, 3) the techniques that could be used to reduce piracy, 4) the audience awareness about this issue and the relationship between being a football fan and the size of sports pirated content, and 5) the correlation between the economic status of the audiences and the act of media piracy. Thus, the study at hand managed to outline the behavior of the Egyptian youth towards pirating the media

SOCIAL DESIRABILITY BIAS IN SOFTWARE PIRACY RESEARCH

Most behavioural aspects of software piracy research are a subset of ethical research. Measures of ethical behaviour in research may be subject to biases in response to the social desirability of behaviours. Few studies in the area of software piracy have explicitly addressed this issu. Literature on social desirability bias (SDB) reports on three ways to address response bias: approaches to reduce bias, approaches to detect bias, and approaches to correct bias. In the current article, the published methods to reduce, detect, and, correct bias are reviewed. Then, the extent of SDB that may be present in the published software piracy literature is subjectively assessed. A study is proposed in which piracy behaviours involving real money are compared to the intent to pirate in paper-based scenarios, under equivalent conditions. The comparison is argud to be useful in compensating for SDB in future research