Digital piracy and the perception of price fairness. Evidence from a field experiment

Michal Krawczyk, Joanna Tyrowicz and Anna Kukla-Gryz

No 39, GRAPE Working Papers from GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics

Abstract: We study a relationship between perceived price fairness and digital piracy. In a large-scale field experiment on customers of a leading ebook store we employ the Bayesian Truth Serum to elicit the information on acquiring books from unauthorized sources (often referred to as digital piracy). We provide empirical evidence in support of the conjecture that willingness to ‘pirate’ is associated with having experienced subjective overpricing. We propose and verify the relevance of two mechanisms behind this link: reactance theory and moral cleansing/licensing. The results indicate that pricing policy perceived as fair may reduce the scope for digital piracy.

Keywords: unauthorized download; digital piracy; fair price; online sales; Bayesian Truth Serum (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 O47 P31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-exp, nep-ipr and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Digital piracy and the perception of price fairness: evidence from a field experiment (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fme:wpaper:39

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