Thongmak, M. (2017). ETHICS, NEUTRALIZATION, AND DIGITAL PIRACY. International Journal Of Electronic Commerce Studies, 8(1), 1-24. (Alexx)

From Digital Culture & Society

<By: Alexx Colley-Reynolds

Due to digital piracy, there is an ongoing concern with many industries losing tons of money. It is something that happens every day. There are many things that come to mind that as to the reasons that people take part in digital piracy. In this study, Ethics, Neutralization, and Digital Piracy, the authors touch on the two elements as to why people are more likely to download content illegally. They are ethics/ morals and neutralization. Through this article, the authors explore the behaviours of people who consume in the illegal practice.

As expressed in the article, there are many different industries that are affected by digital piracy. Due to digital piracy, the music industry loses approximately $12.5 million in the US economy and therefore close to 70,000 jobs are lost. Members of the Motion Picture Association, which is part of the film industry, lose $6.1 billion in potential revenue. Book sales are also lost due to digital piracy. What is lost is about 40% of potential sales. This is a lot of revenue that is lost. This is not accounting for the lost sales of software piracy. Out of all the countries in the world, “Thailand is one country that has been placed on the priority watch list of intellectual property violators” (pg. 2).

This study also focuses their main research in Thailand as it is the main place where digital piracy occurs. As mentioned, there were two main concepts explored through the different places of study; neutralization and ethics/morals. This study really aims to gain a better understanding of the relationships between neutralization, ethics/morals and consumers’ behaviour toward pirating digital products. They also looked at five different levels of piracy; streaming, download and delete, download and keep, download and burn CD for self, and download and burn for others. All of this is in regards to digital software, music, books, and movies.

The first section of this study does a literature review of previous studies. This is a key feature of the study because it shows different results of the relationship between morals and demographic variables including locations in the US and Thailand. They also looked at the more specific demographic of university and college students. These two locations concluded that people were scared to download illegally because they did not want to get computer viruses. Other researchers also found that students would download illegally because it was a way for them to save money. If it will save them money than they are more likely to take part in the illegal download.

After the literature review, the researchers take a look at their hypothesis development of neutralization. The researchers propose that many people use neutralization to justify their actions as to why they engage in digital piracy. This includes denial of responsibility. For example people might say that they download illegally because it does not directly affect people they know. Others may even neutralize their actions by saying that others’ actions are much worse than theirs. This allows people to justify what is right and wrong. Ethics/Morals also came into play when people decided to engage in illegal download. Ethics/morals actually strengthen a negative attitude towards illegal downloading, especially when it comes to CDs. Moral judgements can affect any decision and will determine if it is right or wrong.

When it actually came time to gather results for the study, the researchers used a quantitative method as it was the best way to develop knowledge about the topic in question. Alongside a quantitative study, a causality study was done too. This was done to test the research model and show the cause and effect relationships between neutralization, ethics and piracy behaviour. In order to collect the information for participants, a survey was posted to popular community websites such as www.dek-d.com and www.pantip.com, private Facebook groups and personal contacts of assistants. Out of all the places that the surveys were posted, 303 questionnaires were received. The majority of respondents were female at 61.39%. The majority age group were mainly in the age of 18-21 at 71.62%. The questionnaire also resulted in the conclusion that most of the respondents were students of higher education. It was also concluded that it was mostly females who were more likely to participate in the illegal downloading, specifically music.

In conclusion, they found that people were more likely to engage in digital piracy if they were under the age of 25. It was also concluded that university students were more likely to engage in illegal downloading if their peers also did it. They were more likely to not be affected morally if faculty and student members were not directly affected. This comes as an excuse to participate in illegal downloading. Finally, as a recommendation, the study said that popular idols should impose the idea on their fans that digital piracy is bad and should not be tolerated >