One Sail Fits All? A Psychographic Segmentation of Digital Pirates

Charlotte Emily De Corte () and Patrick Van Kenhove ()
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Charlotte Emily De Corte: Ghent University
Patrick Van Kenhove: Ghent University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2017, vol. 143, issue 3, No 2, 465 pages

Abstract: Abstract This paper focuses on segmenting digital movie and TV series pirates and on investigating the effectiveness of piracy-combatting measures i.e., legal and educational strategies, in light of these segments. To address these research objectives, two online studies were conducted. First, 1277 valid responses were gathered with an online survey. Four pirate segments were found based on differing combinations of attitude toward piracy, ethical evaluation of piracy and feelings of guilt. The anti-pirate, conflicted pirate, cavalier pirate, and die-hard pirate can be placed on a continuum of increasing pirating frequency, subjective norm, pirating self-efficacy, habit, and decreasing in perceived harm, respectively. The segments also differ in deontological and teleological orientations. Second, in an experimental mixed design, we find that the educational strategy is more effective than the legal strategy in lowering pirating intentions for the conflicted and cavalier pirate. However, both strategies fail at lowering intentions of the die-hard pirate, although perceived harm and perceived impunity were significantly influenced. These findings offer a more profound understanding of pirate segments and how they react differently to piracy-combatting measures. As a result, better strategies can be developed to control digital piracy.

Keywords: Digital piracy; Illegal downloading; Online unethical behavior; Piracy segmentation; Piracy-combatting measures; Torrent downloading (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2789-8

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