IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/war/wpaper/2013-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • Wojciech Hardy

    (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw)

  • Michał Krawczyk

    (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw)

  • Joanna Tyrowicz

    (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw; National Bank of Poland)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Wojciech Hardy & Michał Krawczyk & Joanna Tyrowicz, 2013. "Why is online piracy ethically different from theft? A vignette experiment," Working Papers 2013-24, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    • Handle: RePEc:war:wpaper:2013-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/inf/wyd/WP/WNE_WP109.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2013
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gneezy, Uri & Rustichini, Aldo, 2000. "A Fine is a Price," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-17, January.
    2. Tim Goles & Bandula Jayatilaka & Beena George & Linda Parsons & Valrie Chambers & David Taylor & Rebecca Brune, 2008. "Softlifting: Exploring Determinants of Attitude," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 77(4), pages 481-499, February.
    3. Erin L. Krupka & Roberto A. Weber, 2013. "Identifying Social Norms Using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 495-524, June.
    4. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    5. Kirsten Robertson & Lisa McNeill & James Green & Claire Roberts, 2012. "Illegal Downloading, Ethical Concern, and Illegal Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 108(2), pages 215-227, June.
    6. Charles Hill, 2007. "Digital piracy: Causes, consequences, and strategic responses," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 9-25, March.
    7. Connie Bateman & Sean Valentine & Terri Rittenburg, 2013. "Ethical Decision Making in a Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Situation: The Role of Moral Absolutes and Social Consensus," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(2), pages 229-240, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christoph Engel, 2016. "Experimental Criminal Law. A Survey of Contributions from Law, Economics and Criminology," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2016_07, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    2. Krawczyk, Michał & Tyrowicz, Joanna & Kukla-Gryz, Anna & Hardy, Wojciech, 2015. "“Piracy is not theft!” Is it just students who think so?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 32-39.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michal Krawczyk & Joanna Tyrowicz & Wojciech Hardy, 2020. "Online and physical appropriation: evidence from a vignette experiment on copyright infringement," Behaviour and Information Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 481-496, April.
    2. Lu-Ming Tseng, 2019. "How Implicit Ethics Institutionalization Affects Ethical Selling Intention: The Case of Taiwan’s Life Insurance Salespeople," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 727-742, September.
    3. Koay, Kian Yeik & Tjiptono, Fandy & Sandhu, Manjit Singh, 2020. "Digital piracy among consumers in a developing economy: A comparison of multiple theory-based models," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    4. Gary Bolton & Eugen Dimant & Ulrich Schmidt, 2018. "When a Nudge Backfires. Using Observation with Social and Economic Incentives to Promote Pro-Social Behavior," PPE Working Papers 0017, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    5. Michèle Belot & Marina Schröder, 2016. "The Spillover Effects of Monitoring: A Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(1), pages 37-45, January.
    6. Bicchieri, Cristina & Dimant, Eugen & Xiao, Erte, 2021. "Deviant or wrong? The effects of norm information on the efficacy of punishment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 209-235.
    7. Gui Ye & Hongzhe Yue & Jingjing Yang & Hongyang Li & Qingting Xiang & Yuan Fu & Can Cui, 2020. "Understanding the Sociocognitive Process of Construction Workers’ Unsafe Behaviors: An Agent-Based Modeling Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-33, March.
    8. Columbus, Simon & Feld, Lars P. & Kasper, Matthias & Rablen, Matthew D., 2023. "Behavioural Responses to Unfair Institutions: Experimental Evidence on Rule Compliance, Norm Polarisation, and Trust," IZA Discussion Papers 16346, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Martin Eisend, 2019. "Morality Effects and Consumer Responses to Counterfeit and Pirated Products: A Meta-analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 301-323, January.
    10. Erkut, Hande, 2022. "Social norms and preferences for generosity are domain dependent," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 121-140.
    11. Bolton, Gary & Dimant, Eugen & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2021. "Observability and social image: On the robustness and fragility of reciprocity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 946-964.
    12. Lata Gangadharan & Tarun Jain & Pushkar Maitra & Joe Vecci, 2022. "Lab-in-the-field experiments: perspectives from research on gender," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 31-59, January.
    13. Ezzine-de-Blas, Driss & Corbera, Esteve & Lapeyre, Renaud, 2019. "Payments for Environmental Services and Motivation Crowding: Towards a Conceptual Framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 434-443.
    14. Diana Onu & Lynne Oats & Erich Kirchler & Andre Julian Hartmann, 2019. "Gaming the System: An Investigation of Small Business Owners’ Attitudes to Tax Avoidance, Tax Planning, and Tax Evasion," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-17, November.
    15. Jakob Alfitian & Dirk Sliwka & Timo Vogelsang, 2021. "When Bonuses Backfire: Evidence from the Workplace," Natural Field Experiments 00725, The Field Experiments Website.
    16. Jessica Müller & Ángel Acevedo-Duque & Sheyla Müller & Prateek Kalia & Khalid Mehmood, 2021. "Predictive Sustainability Model Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior Incorporating Ecological Conscience and Moral Obligation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-16, April.
    17. Cristiano Franceschinis & Ulf Liebe & Mara Thiene & Jürgen Meyerhoff & Damien Field & Alex McBratney, 2022. "The effect of social and personal norms on stated preferences for multiple soil functions: evidence from Australia and Italy," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 66(2), pages 335-362, April.
    18. Avineri, Erel, 2012. "On the use and potential of behavioural economics from the perspective of transport and climate change," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 512-521.
    19. Michalis Drouvelis & Benjamin M. Marx, 2021. "Dimensions of donation preferences: the structure of peer and income effects," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 274-302, March.
    20. Govindan, Pavitra, 2022. "How do informal norms affect rule compliance: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 96(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    vignette experiment; illegal downloading; digital piracy; illegal download; downloading behaviour; P2P network;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:war:wpaper:2013-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marcin Bąba (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fesuwpl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.