„Piracy is not theft!”

Is it just students who think so?

Wojciech Hardy, Michał Krawczyk, Anna Kukla-Gryz, Joanna Tyrowicz

EALE `14

Group for Research in APplied Economics

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Motivation & Introduction

Students – the very popular sample for studies.

Obvious pros: cheap and available `on-spot’.

Possible cons: are they representative of general population?

Notably: students are younger, from more educated background, etc.

Prior research on these issues arrived at various conclusions:

Peterson (2001), Charness et al. (2004), Box-Steffensmeier et al. (2008), Druckman and Kam (2011).

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Same goes with piracy studies

Students often chosen for studying piracy,

(e.g. studies in China, France, Japan, US)

Specificity:

They are Internet-proficient.

Budgetary constrained.

With lower ethical standards and larger influences from social norms.

Problem we address:

Lack of consensus of generalizability of piracy studies based on student populations.

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Key elements of design

A study of ethical perception of various modes of content acquisition.

Various views (individual judgment, social norms, various aspects of the deeds).

Comparison between the students and one other, contrasting, group.

Judging the characteristics of the deeds

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Hypothetical stories about Johnny, who committed various, questionable acts to acquire a TV series.

Judging the characteristics of the deeds

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Hypothetical stories about Johnny, who committed various, questionable acts to acquire a TV series.

18 stories based on six dimensions often mentioned in the debate around piracy:

Loss, Physicality, Alternative, Peer, Sharing, Protection

Judging the characteristics of the deeds

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Hypothetical stories about Johnny, who committed various, questionable acts to acquire a TV series.

18 stories based on six dimensions often mentioned in the debate around piracy:

Loss, Physicality, Alternative, Peer, Sharing, Protection

Rating scale: 1 – Totaly unacceptable; 4 – Fully acceptable.

Note that there is no interpretable middle.

Judging the characteristics of the deeds

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Hypothetical stories about Johnny, who committed various, questionable acts to acquire a TV series.

18 stories based on six dimensions often mentioned in the debate around piracy:

Loss, Physicality, Alternative, Peer, Sharing, Protection

Rating scale: 1 – Totaly unacceptable; 4 – Fully acceptable.

Note that there is no interpretable middle.

Additional questions on personal behaviour and demographics.

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Story examples

A friend of Johnny's forgot to log out from his e-mail box, after using Johnny's computer. While closing the web browser, Johnny spotted that the mail currently displayed on his screen contained a one-use only access code for a payable site with TV series in High Definition. Johnny quickly copied the code, and after returning home used it on a season of a popular TV series.

Not physical; Loss; Peer; No alternative; No sharing; Protection

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Story examples

A friend of Johnny's forgot to log out from his e-mail box, after using Johnny's computer. While closing the web browser, Johnny spotted that the mail currently displayed on his screen contained a one-use only access code for a payable site with TV series in High Definition. Johnny quickly copied the code, and after returning home used it on a season of a popular TV series.

Not physical; Loss; Peer; No alternative; No sharing; Protection

A new season of a popular, high budget, American TV series is available in kiosks as an add-on for a magazine priced 7.99 PLN. However, Johnny downloaded the series from another source, for free.

Not physical; No loss; Not a peer; Alternative; No sharing; No protection.

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Various kinds of judgments

Rewards offered as an encouragement.

Treatments:

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Various kinds of judgments

Rewards offered as an encouragement.

Treatments:

Treatment I: Ethical Judgement (EJ)

Treatment II: Social Norms (SN)

Treatment III: Incentivized Social Norms (ISN)

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Various kinds of judgments

Rewards offered as an encouragement.

Treatments:

Treatment I: Ethical Judgement (EJ)

De facto: what do YOU think about it.

Treatment II: Social Norms (SN)

De facto: what do you think the WHOLE POPULATION thinks about it.

Treatment III: Incentivized Social Norms (ISN)

De facto: what do you think YOUR GROUP thinks about it.

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Students Group versus the IPCG

STUDENTS GROUP (SG)

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY-CONSCIOUS GROUP (IPCG)

From The University Four Facebook pages

Age (min-max) 19-30 18-53

Age (median) 23 28

Male 40% 28%

N 329 127 (94)

Moreover 60% employed.

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Methodology

Ordered logit regressions:

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Regressions results

Comparison of coefficients

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Conclusions

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Conclusions

1) The importance of dimensions:

Physicality (Most important)

Loss

Protection

Peer

Sharing

Alternative (Insignificant)

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Conclusions

1) The importance of dimensions:

Physicality (Most important)

Loss

Protection

Peer

Sharing

Alternative (Insignificant)

2) Story aspects are treated similarly by both groups.

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Conclusions

1) The importance of dimensions:

Physicality (Most important)

Loss

Protection

Peer

Sharing

Alternative (Insignificant)

2) Story aspects are treated similarly by both groups.

3) Students are not a bad sample.

Thank you for your attention! Author: Wojciech Hardy e-mail: whardy@wne.uw.edu.pl

More about our research on:

http://grape.uw.edu.pl/ipiracy

Twitter: @GrapeUW