To Buy Or To Pirate? Get A Clue RIAA!
Is the RIAA’s strategy to stop music piracy working? According to a recent study, interesting data has been collected from college students that holds both good and bad news for the RIAA. Where does this leave the future of downloading?
204 undergraduates from a large Midwestern University were promised anonymity and were recently sampled in a piracy study since students download more often than non-students. Researchers believed college students were the best representatives of digital music consumers and studied an equal number of males and females in regards to software piracy, movie piracy, and music piracy. The Elsevier findings blew away previous research and statistics about digital pirates.
Researchers set out to test these business students for the decision factors of obtaining online music, such as how important the ethical, legal and social consequences are in of music piracy. Motivations and theoretical research found that among 24 kinds of questionable Internet behaviors, downloading copyright-protected music and movies is considered the least wrong. An acquisition-mode framework for musical piracy was developed and was based upon previous research.
Although the RIAA suggests outrageous losses due to digital pirates, other research has pointed out that piracy has an insignificant effect on CD sales. From the musicians perspective, it takes the sale of about 500,000 CD’s for most artists to break even. By making their music available for free, some musicians believe it is beneficial. Once a listener has heard and appreciated the artist’s music, he may be more willing to buy future work. However, consumers who consider music piracy to negatively affect musicians and music companies in terms of profit will be less likely to engage in music piracy.
Many of the 204 college students surveyed admitted to downloading music as a way to sample what music they might later purchase. All the students downloaded music that they couldn’t find on the radio, while 2/3 of those listeners ended up making a music purchase. 40% of them downloaded music to sample what they would never consider purchasing; they didn’t like it after hearing it. Consumers who consider the Internet as an important medium to discover new music are more likely to engage in piracy.
Researchers combined results of other studies with new perspectives for studying pirates and what influences their decisions. They set out to discover the ethical, legal and economic decision-making reasons behind digital piracy. Then they broke down the study into eight factors: Networking effects, legal/ethical , comparisons to other pirates, type of music pirated, economics, overcharging, no risk, and situational pirating.
While the RIAA research reported a ridiculous music industry loss of about $45 billion and that digital pirates are an angry group of people who feel “ripped off” and are “out to get” the music industry, this study showed piracy intentions boil down to what type of music, network effects, and no risk to the pirate. In many cases, what has previously been “proven” as the motives behind piracy has declined. Younger males with low income seem to be the most prone to pirating. Once a person has pirated, they are more likely to continue doing so.
Given below is a table, which shows the results of the principal components factors analysis. Note that items in the red cells indicate a negative loading factor as compared to the positive loading factors in the green cells.
| Factor | Loadings | Item description |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Network effects | .64 | Record companies are benefited by piracy because more people will be exposed to new music and will want to purchase new music |
| .57 | Record stores are benefited by piracy because more people will be exposed to new music and will want to purchase new music | |
| .75 | A good reason to pirate music is so you can listen to it and then decide if you want to purchase it | |
| .78 | If I pirated a certain CD and I liked it, I would recommend it to my friends | |
| .79 | If I pirated a certain song and I liked it, I would recommend it to my friends | |
| .76 | Downloading pirated music helps consumers discover new musicians and bands | |
| .72 | Musicians are benefited by piracy because more people will be exposed to new music and will want to purchase new music | |
| .76 | Pirating music is a good way to discover new artists | |
| 2. Legal/ethical | .65 | Pirating just a couple of songs is not so bad |
| − .64 | It is fair to prosecute music pirates | |
| − .69 | I consider piracy of music to be unethical | |
| − .78 | I consider music piracy to be the same as stealing | |
| − .75 | People who pirate music should feel guilty | |
| − .71 | People who pirate music should be punished | |
| − .73 | I consider music piracy to be a crime | |
| 3. Comparisons to other piracies | .83 | Pirating music is not as bad as pirating books |
| .87 | Pirating music is not as bad as pirating movies | |
| .86 | Pirating music is not as bad as pirating software | |
| .87 | Pirating music is not as bad as pirating photographs | |
| 4. Depends on type of music piracy | .71 | It is okay to pirate music as long as you don’t share it with anyone else |
| .55 | Keeping pirated music on a computer’s hard drive is not as bad as burning pirated music onto a CD | |
| .61 | It is okay to pirate music from well-known artists, but less appropriate to pirate music from unknown artists | |
| 5. Economics | .71 | Music piracy contributes to an increase in prices of recorded music |
| .62 | Music companies incur a loss due to piracy | |
| 6. Overcharging | .80 | Music is too expensive to purchase |
| .74 | Record companies could charge lower prices and still be profitable | |
| 7. No risk | .72 | It is easy to pirate music without getting caught |
| 8. Situational | .58 | If you don’t have enough money for music and you really like it, it is okay to pirate it |
| .55 | It is okay to purchase music legally and then make copies for friends | |
| 9. Consider penalties | .55 | If people get caught pirating, it will not affect their future very much |
| .68 | I think the legal penalties for music piracy are minor |
Pirates’ music purchases may be declining, but legally downloading music is an important part of the music industry’s future. The RIAA needs to wake up! If the pirate likes the artist, he is more prone to digitally purchase one or two really great songs off a CD. When the RIAA rants about losses, it may only anger the consumers who will then pirate more music. In regards to software, most software pirates do not consider it especially harmful to the manufacturers due to the inflated fixed costs of software. Network effects strongly figure into piracy, while some other network motivations, such as gift-giving and receiving, uploaders and downloaders, has not been fully researched.
Sadly, this same research group believes there should be a study to determine the percent of piracy based upon rebelliousness, a state in which one feels compelled to behave contradictory to standards or established rule, and upon if the pirate enjoys defiant rock music. Anyone who pirates can tell you that those are not the driving factors in deciding to buy or to pirate. Perhaps when a person was really young, the feeling of rebellion played a part, perhaps way back when sharing music via P2P was new, then something such as Metallica raising a stink over downloading their music might have caused a desire to go and specifically pirate their tunes. Perhaps back in the beginning of peer-to-peer sharing, that might have been how some pirates discovered groups such as Metallica. In fact, that might have been their first song ever pirated. But pirates are developing and ever-changing, growing older and wiser. Digital pirates are a fact of life and no study, RIAA, MPAA can shut them down.
Journal Reference: doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2008.05.002
Image Credit: Flickr
