A Qualitative Investigation of Decision Making in Digital Piracy

• In Event: Deterrence and Rational Choice

Abstract

Digital piracy is the unlawful reproduction of digital goods, software, digital documents and media for reasons other than a personal use without permission or compensation given to the owner of the copyrights (Gopal et al., 2004). While there are significant economic implications to digital piracy, understanding how individuals make the decision to pirate is crucial to inform efforts to prevent, deter, tackle and address the unlawful reproduction of media. I argue that prospect theory is a possibility to further expand the theory on piracy because it offers a behavioural decision making model that captures distortions in the perception of risk and incorporates the psychological value – as opposed to the actual mathematical value – of outcomes (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979). This might help explain, for instance, why individuals practice piracy even when they consider it to be unethical based on the terms of their decision and how they represent it. This paper is a qualitative investigation of the decision making process through online focus groups with university students to investigate how that decision is represented – risks, gains and losses- in light of prospect theory. The results can help clarify research questions and variables that require further investigation.

Author

• Daniel Caetano, University of Queensland