Trusting Pirated Software

What is the life span for a fixed version of a software product? Is it a day, a week, a month, a year, or more? There is no single answer. Each product is unique, based on what it does. The point is that all software has a life span for each unique version of itself

An Evaluation Of Perceived Safety Of Free Software: The Brafs Model

This dissertation explores the perceived safety of free software and its relationship with the intention to use this technology in a business setting. The newly created construct of perceived safety is developed out of the theory of planned behavior. It is researched, scrutinized, and refined according to academic guidelines and two different environmental settings. The constructs that impact perceived safety and its relationship with intention to use consist of technology perceived risk, technology trusting beliefs, expected financial utility, and perceived adverse impact on professional reputation. Each construct consists of multiple operationalized elements. To explore this empirically, beneficial and risk measurements have been adapted from relevant literature in information systems/technology, management, risk, financial, and psychology academic publications. Three pilot studies were done in sequence among a student population before the instrument was tested among a main study that consisted of individuals with the ability to make software decisions for a nonprofit organization. The results suggest that perceived safety is needed in order for the intention to use free software in business, and that this relationship is impacted through various benefits and risks constructs. The study raises a number of opportunities to be explored and debated by future research, both in the realm of free software and beyond

“It's the one thing that makes my life tick”:security perspectives of the smartphone era

As smartphones overtake personal computers as the device of choice for internet access and everyday digital tasks, cybersecurity becomes a pressing issue for the platform. Research has found that smartphone users appear to act less securely than they would on a PC, but the reasons for this are unclear. The technology, the threats, and the role of smartphones have all developed in recent years, and this paper examines what smartphone security looks like to users in the 2020s. We interviewed 27 smartphone users about their security attitudes and behaviours. We find that users place great emphasis on, and take responsibility for, the physical security of their device, but minimise their responsibility for dealing with digital threats. We observe key contextual factors that influence how users protect their smartphones. The increasing monetary cost of smartphones and users’ functional reliance on them, causes participants to be highly concerned with protecting the physical safety and integrity of their devices. However, users appear to have a high level of trust in apps, based on the vetting processes of official app stores, yet they are still vulnerable to abuse from malicious/unnecessary permissions, and exhibit poor security habits when accessing illegitimate, pirated media outside of their smartphone's app store

Exploring the attitudes and behaviors of the Portuguese towards intellectual property rights infrigement and copies

Exploring the Attitudes and the Perception of the Portuguese toward Property Right Infringement and Copies This study develops work on the Portuguese purchasing habits regarding Intellectual Property Infringement products and copies. Ahybrid research approach was used: both qualitative and quantitative insights were gathered. The main conclusions reached were that while counterfeits and pirated items are treated equally, they are different from copies in the consumer’s mind. This barrier lies in the legality of the matter. Being a seller of these articles is deemed more incorrect than being its purchaser. Two behaviors stand out: people who do not feel ashamed by practicing unlawful practices and showing, and decreased propensity to purchase if the intention is gifting others

Analysis of Consumer Behavior on Purchase Intention of Counterfeit Shoes in Manado

The objective of this study is to understand the influence of attitude, value consciousness, social status, perceived price, and past experience toward consumer purchase intention of counterfeit shoes in Manado. The data was collected from 100 respondents that purchase counterfeit shoes and multiple regression analysis was used to test the relationship among variables. The result indicated that the perceived price has significant influence toward consumer purchase intention of counterfeit shoes in Manado. The characteristic of perceived price has substantial positive influence to the consumer purchase intention. The author recommends to shoes producers to pay more attention of the reasons why consumers in Manado consider the price is the main factor that influence the purchasing intention of consumers. Keywords: counterfeiting, counterfeit shoes, consumer behavior, consumer purchase intentio

Advertising Appeals and Willingness to Pay for a Music Streaming Service

Even with the rise of music streaming services, illegal downloads are costing the music industry $2.7 billion per year. The purpose of this study is to determine what types of advertising appeals will be most effective at enhancing the willingness to pay for a streaming service, thereby decreasing music piracy. This study examined college students’ willingness to pay for, willingness to recommend, interest in, and affective reaction to a music service after being exposed to a digital advertisement that employed either a rational, fear, or guilt appeal for a fictitious music streaming service. It was expected that music involvement, or the level at which students perceive, consume, and interact with music in their daily lives, would moderate both their response to the appeal and their willingness to pay for the service. Overall, it was found that the rational appeal produced less negative affect than both the fear and guilt appeals. The rational appeal also produced greater positive affect than the fear appeal. In terms of music involvement, the guilt appeal produced higher purchase intention for both high and low musically involved respondents than the rational and fear appeals. Additionally, it was found that fear appeals produced the least advertisement recall compared to the rational and guilt appeals

Typhoid Mario: Video Game Piracy as Viral Vector and National Security Threat

Current academic and policy discussions regarding video game piracy focus on the economic losses inherent to copyright infringement. Unfortunately, this approach neglects the most significant implication of video game piracy: malware distribution. Copyright-motivated efforts to shut down file-sharing sites do little to reduce piracy and actually increase viral malware infection. Pirated video games are an ideal delivery device for malware, as users routinely launch unverified programs and forego virus detection. The illicit nature of the transaction forces users to rely almost entirely on the reputation of websites, uploaders, and other users to determine if a file is safe to download. In spite of this, stakeholders continue to push for ineffectual anti-infringement actions that destroy this reputational infrastructure. Scholars and policymakers have not made a case for utility by considering only first-stage economic incentives to create content. In addition to the economic consequences, malware must be taken seriously as a threat to infrastructure and national security, especially in light of Russia’s efforts to infect machines to influence and delegitimize elections. Accordingly, this Article proposes that we adopt a harm reduction philosophy that both dissuades piracy and decreases the malware risk attendant to ongoing piracy

Refining brand strategy: Insights into how the “informed-poseur” legitimizes purchasing counterfeits

In this paper, we examine how brand managers can utilize the knowledge function to devise a brand strategy that reinforces a luxury brand’s reputation and counteracts the actions of counterfeiters. We explain why brand managers need to develop insights into how knowledge is utilized so that they can understand the behaviour of the “informed-poseur”. Attention focuses on how the knowledge function addresses the conflict between the “social” function and the “self-ego” function when consumers consider purchasing counterfeits. We extend existing knowledge by identifying two sub-groups: the “Informed poseur-realistic” and the “informed poseur-neo”, and distinguish between the two sub-groups by making links with their social context. This adds to our knowledge of how millennials think and make purchase related decisions, and how brand managers can develop brand portfolio strategies that highlight the uniqueness of the value proposition and communicate more effectively with the “informed-poseur” group. A small group interview and survey were used to collect data and the findings suggest that when an “informed-poseur” considers purchasing a counterfeit product, they corroborate their actions by utilizing the knowledge function, which takes them through various cognitive and evaluative processes