Phau, I., Teah, M.,

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[[Alexx Colley-Reynolds

Investigating the Factors Influencing Digital Movie Piracy

There are many countries in the world that experience digital movie piracy. Australia is one of those countries. In September 2014, it was recorded that 1.5 million illegal downloads occurred for the Season 4 finale of Game of Thrones only 12 hours after it was released in the United States. Movies are not the only digital media that are susceptible to digital piracy. Software, music and games are also vulnerable to digital piracy. However, movie piracy “continues to be a major drain on the global economy, especially for the global film industries” (pg. 637). There is a lot of money that goes into major films, and digital piracy puts a strain on the movie industry financially.

In Australia, it was estimated that there were 6,000 full-time jobs lost within the movie and film industry in 2010 due to digital piracy. Digital piracy effects more than just the people who are part of the production process, but those who sell those movies after production and who work in movie theatres. There is a large need to counteract illegal pirating activity to help countries where many jobs are lost to help them regain their economic losses.

In Australia, it was found through a Choice survey that consumers tried to find legal content first, but if they were unsuccessful they would turn to other resources. There are high prices of content in Australia and there is a lack of content as well, this in-turn forced people to turn to digital piracy to get access to content. In addition to high prices of digital content, movie ticket prices have increased to $20 for a single movie ticket, which makes movie pirating more economically smart.

There have been many ways that marketers have tried to associate pirating with a bad connotation. These marketers try to educate consumers at a young age that digital pirating is wrong and they emphasize the importance of intellectual property. Since this was and still is unsuccessful, marketers are wanting to understand why people are turning to digital piracy. The article in review examines the relationship between six antecedent factors such as social factors, facilitating conditions, habitual conduct, self-efficacy, affect and moral judgement. Based on relevant literature, the article mentions that there are four key theories that explain the behaviour of consumers in regards to digital piracy. Theory of planned behaviour, self-control theory, neutralization theory and mere exposure theory are the four theories that are used to explain consumer’s behaviour towards digital piracy.

Within the hypothesis development section of the article, the authors go into detail about each of the six antecedent factors regarding consumer behaviour. 1) Habitual conduct is described by the authors that the consumer gets a sense of pleasure of achievement once they take-part in the illegal download. It is hard to stop consumers from doing this once they start as they still want to have the sense of satisfaction and pleasure. 2) Affect occurs when the consumers engages in the illegal download and they feel challenged and excited that no one has captured them in doing this illegal act. 3) Moral judgement on the other hand, “plays an important role in extending individuals’ attitudes toward digital piracy and their perspectives of this criminal act” (pg. 645). 4) Self-efficacy in this article refers to the judgement of the individual’s ability to participate in digital piracy in regards to their technological capability. 5) Social factors are conveyed through the behaviour of friends, family and colleagues made through comments or suggestions about digital pirating. 6) Facilitating conditions are referred to as the control factors in an individual’s environment that facilitate the act of downloading illegal content.

The authors of this article assume that people who use the internet frequently and who use it for a long period of time are more likely to engage in digital piracy, or that their intent to illegally download is increased. This is suggested because the more time that people are on the internet, the more they are going to learn about how the download content illegally. Through surveying down by the researchers, they collected 203 completed surveys from a large Australian university. The data collected showed that in their survey over 50% of the respondents were female and that the percentage of downloaders (71.6%) was much higher than non-downloaders (28.4%).

The researchers found the following results with their hypotheses:

H1: Habitual Conduct – Accepted. If downloaders have a habit of indulging in illegal downloading activity, they will develop strong positive attitudes toward downloading pirated movies from the internet.

H2: Affect – Accepted. If downloaders have a strong positive desire to engage in illegal downloading activity, they will develop strong positive attitudes toward downloading pirated movies from the internet.

H3: Moral judgement – Accepted. If downloaders have low moral judgement about engaging in illegal downloading activities, they will develop strong positive attitudes toward downloading pirated movies from the internet.

H4: Self-efficacy – Rejected. If downloaders have a high level of capabilities to engage in illegal downloading activities, they will develop strong positive attitudes toward downloading pirated movies from the internet.

H5: Social Factors – Rejected. If downloaders are encouraged by family, friends, or colleagues to engage in illegal downloading activities, they will develop strong positive attitudes toward downloading pirated movies from the internet.

H6: Facilitating Conditions – Rejected. If downloaders are supported by favorable facilitating conditions to engage in illegal downloading activities, they will develop strong positive attitudes toward downloading pirated movies from the internet.

All of these findings produced by the researchers, can help marketers and policymakers determine the behaviours behind consumers engaging in illegal movie downloading and digital piracy.


Phau, I., Teah, M., & Liang, J. (2016). Investigating the Factors Influencing Digital Movie Piracy. Journal Of Promotion Management, 22(5), 637-664.

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