Why is online piracy ethically different from theft? A vignette experiment

Wojciech Hardy, Michal Krawczyk and Joanna Tyrowicz

No 2013-24, Working Papers from Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

Abstract: This study employs a vignette experiment to inquire, which features of online “piracy” make it ethically discernible from a traditional theft. This question is pertinent since the social norm concerning traditional theft is starkly different from the evidence on ethical evaluation of online “piracy”. We specifically distinguish between contextual features of theft, such as for example the physical loss of an item, breach of protection, availability of alternatives, emotional proximity to the victim of theft, etc. We find that some of these dimensions have more weight in ethical judgment, but there are no clear differences between online and traditional theft which could explain discrepancy in the frequency of commitment.

Keywords: vignette experiment; illegal downloading; digital piracy; illegal download; downloading behaviour; P2P network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C93 D12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cul, nep-exp, nep-ict, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-iue and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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http://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/inf/wyd/WP/WNE_WP109.pdf First version, 2013 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:war:wpaper:2013-24

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