software piracy among computing students: a bruneian scenario

Software piracy among computing students: a Bruneianscenario

Md. Mahbubur Rahim*, Afzaal H. Seyal, Mohd. Noah Abd. Rahman

Department of Computing and Information Systems, Institute Technology Brunei, Tungko Gadong, BE 1410 BandarSeri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

Accepted 5 April 1999

Abstract

Software piracy committed by university students in the western world has been published widely invarious computer literature. Little is reported however about why and what proportion of students,particularly computing students, in a South East Asian Country like Brunei Darussalam, use piratedsoftware. A survey was thus conducted among the computing students of all the higher educationalinstitutions in Brunei Darussalam. A normative model was also developed that brought together eightfactors related to student demography, nature of educational institutions and copyright laws. Thismodel was empirically tested using 91 responses received from the survey. Several interesting ®ndingsemerged. Firstly, nearly two-thirds of the students admitted to having used pirated software. Secondly,entertainment was the prominent reason for using pirated software. Thirdly, gender, computerexperience and ownership of a personal computer, were found to a�ect students' use of pirated software.Fourthly, even those students who supported the introduction of copyright laws committed softwarepiracy. The implications of these ®ndings are discussed, and are compared with some related studies.Finally, limitations of the study are mentioned, and areas of further research are identi®ed. # 1999Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: software piracy; pirated software; computing students

Computers & Education 32 (1999) 301±321

0360-1315/99/$ - see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

PII: S0360-1315(99 )00010-X

www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

* Corresponding author.E-mail address: [email protected] (M.M. Rahim)

1. Introduction

The term `software piracy' generally refers to the practice of making unauthorised copies ofsoftware that is neither site-licensed nor in the public domain (Taylor & Shim, 1993). The useof unauthorised software packages, particularly in the personal computer (PC) environmenthas recently increased dramatically. It is estimated that out of the 523 million business softwareapplications used globally during 1996, 225 million units were pirated (Business SoftwareAlliance, 1996). In other words, about one in every two copies of software is illegally made. Itis thus not surprising that the software industry lost US$12.4 billion globally in 1997 (AsiaBusiness, 1998). Software piracy is not restricted to the western world, it is also prevalent inthe Asia/Paci®c region. For instance, Business Software Association (BSA) claims that softwarepiracy in the Asia/Paci®c countries has caused a revenue loss of US$3.73 billion (Fischer,1997). Moreover, in some Asian countries (e.g. China, Vietnam and Indonesia) software piracyis believed to be in excess of 95%. Software piracy thus appears to be a global practice, and assuch, it has become a major concern to the software industry.Some existing literature reports that software piracy is more prevalent in academia than the

business world (Taylor & Shim, 1993; Machrone, 1987). Authors like Solomon and O'Brien(1990), Im and Van Epps (1992), Eining and Christensen (1991), Kowalski and Kowalski(1990) and Wong et al. (1990) con®rmed a rampant use of pirated software by universitystudents. Such a widespread use of pirated software by students is undesirable due to threemajor reasons. Firstly, there are indirect costs to academic institutions where students practisesoftware piracy. For instance, there is a possible cost of litigation resulting from unlawfullyexpropriating software, as well as the negative publicity that follows such lawsuits (Kowalski &Kowalski, 1990). Secondly, the more technically oriented the students are, the more technicalsolutions will be required to limit software abuse. As students become further technicallyoriented, a new set of technical solutions will be required. It is because most technologicalsolutions provide only temporary protection against software theft. This endless cycle, if notcontrolled adequately, will have a strong impact on the price of original software (Malhotra,1994). Thirdly, software piracy may create an e�ect on students' appreciation of the need forethical behaviour. Taking the property of another without o�ering compensation is stealing. Astudent who makes an unauthorised copy of software is in fact taking somebody else'sintellectual property (Kowalski & Kowalski, 1990). If this is condoned at academia, such anattitude may lead to the feeling that other forms of intellectual stealing are acceptable as well.Software piracy is therefore not only a serious threat to the software publishers, but may alsocause an erosion of social values. One way to address this problem is to introduce ethics as acoursework into the computing curriculum, which could guide students on how to deal withsoftware systems in an ethically sensitive situation. However, the success of any ethics-basedcurriculum has not been empirically tested and reported in any literature.Past empirical studies on software piracy were primarily undertaken in the western world.

Hence, it remains unclear whether the factors responsible for software piracy as reported bythe existing studies are also applicable to the student populations (particularly computingstudents) in a di�erent geographical setting. Against this background, this study was conductedto examine software piracy practice among computing students in Brunei Darussalam, a smallsultanate located in South East Asia.

Md. Mahbubur Rahim et al. / Computers & Education 32 (1999) 301±321302

The remaining sections of this paper have been arranged in the following sequence. Section 2summarises past empirical studies on software piracy among students, and identi®es theirweaknesses. Next, a normative model derived from the existing literature is presented, and aset of hypotheses based on the developed model are postulated. This is followed by researchmethod, results and discussions. Finally, the paper concludes by highlighting researchcontribution, limitations, and areas for further research.

2. Past studies: a summary

Past empirical studies investigating software piracy among students identi®ed a number offactors that were found signi®cantly related to students' use of pirated software. A summary ofthese factors together with sample size, country of study and authors' names are listed in Table1. The factors (as shown in Table 1) can be grouped into two broad categories: studentdemography and computer parameters. Student demography includes gender, age, major ofstudy, religious orientation, employment status among others, while computer parametersinclude PC ownership, computer knowledge and computer attitude. No established pattern ofresults has emerged from these studies due to contradictory ®ndings reported by theresearchers. For instance, Simpson, Banerjee and Simpson (1994) and Sims, Cheng and Teegen(1996) found gender a signi®cant factor, while Wong et al. (1990) reported no impact of genderon software piracy. Likewise, age of students was found to be important by Sims et al. (1996),

Table 1A brief summary of past empirical studies on software piracy (1990±98)

Researchers Country Sample Signi®cant factors

Wong, Kong & Ngai(1990)

Hong Kong 504 post-secondary students PC ownership,PC knowledge,career orientation

Kowalski & Kowalski(1990)

Canada andSweden

135 students from a CanadianUniversity and 158 students from aSwedish University

PC ownership

Simpson, Banerjee &Simpson (1994)

US 209 students from business streams Religious orientation

Sims, Cheng & Teegen(1996)

US 240 undergraduate and 100postgraduate business students

Sex and age

Solomon & O'Brien (1990) US 267 students enrolled in MIS classes atvarious levels at two US universities

Sex and major of study

Swinyard, Rinne & Kau

(1990)

US and

Singapore

371 students from a US University and

150 students from a SingaporeUniversity

Support for copyright laws

Eining & Christensen

(1991)

US 213 students in upper level business

class

Computer attitude and

material gainsAng & Lo (1998) Australia 134 tertiary students from an

Australian universitySex and major of study

Md. Mahbubur Rahim et al. / Computers & Education 32 (1999) 301±321 303

while Solomon and O'Brien (1990), Eining and Christensen (1991) and Wong et al. (1990)found no impact of age on software piracy.The studies as shown in Table 1 have focussed on the general student population (some of

whom were taking MIS as a one-semester subject). As such, software piracy among computingstudents still remains unexplored. We argue that the use of pirated software among computingstudents is likely to be di�erent than those students majoring in business or social sciences. It isbecause computing students have more opportunity to develop the skills and know-hownecessary to pirate software. Moreover, computing students represent a portion of society, thathas the greatest opportunity to commit computer abuse in the future (Kowalski & Kowalski,1990). Thus, if the computing students are not discouraged from using pirated software atacademia, it will be much more di�cult to stop them after they graduate.A close look at Table 1 further reveals that the existing literature does not consider the

possible in¯uence of the academic institutions on software piracy. In this study, we argue thatin addition to student demography and their computer knowledge, institution parameters (e.g.type of academic institution, location of institution, and remarks of faculty members) are alsolikely to have an impact on students' use of pirated software. Detailed explanation forincluding institution parameters is discussed in Section 4. In summary, it is evident that furthere�orts are necessary to better understand software piracy particularly with regard tocomputing students.

3. Research questions

Even though a number of studies (as mentioned in Section 2) have investigated softwarepiracy among students in several countries, little information is available about why and whatproportion of the computing students in a South East Asian country like Brunei Darussalam,use pirated software. It is also not clear whether the factors as identi®ed by past studies areapplicable to explain software piracy among Bruneian students. It is because BruneiDarussalam is culturally very di�erent from Europe, US and Hong Kong. Against thisbackdrop, this study was initiated to address the following research questions:

1. What proportion of computing students use pirated software?2. What are the tasks that computing students perform with pirated software?3. What are the reasons for using pirated software by computing students?4. What are the factors that are related to computing students' use of pirated software?

4. Research model and development of hypotheses

On the basis of the existing literature, a normative model was developed and is shown inFig. 1. This is a one-stage model that relates eight independent variables with a dependentvariable. In this study, the dependent variable is the ``use of pirated software'', and asmentioned earlier (in Section 1), a software is considered pirated when it is neither site-licensednor in the public domain (Taylor & Shim, 1993). Students use pirated software to support or


ful®l some purposes such as completing class assignment, entertainment, developing someapplications for others etc. Out of eight independent variables, seven are grouped into twocategories: student parameters and institution parameters. Student parameters include gender,personal computer ownership, parental income and computer experience. Other demographicfactors such as religion, age, employment and marital status were not included as they weredeemed inappropriate to the subjects (i.e., computing students) under study. Several reasonsfor their non-inclusion are put forward. First, a large proportion of Brunei Darussalamstudents share the same religion. Second, almost all the computing students lie in the same agegroup (18±22 years), because academic institutions in Brunei currently o�er onlyundergraduate Diplomas and Bachelor degree programmes. Moreover, post-graduate coursesin computer science or related subjects are not currently o�ered in Brunei Darussalam.Institution parameters include type of institution, geographical location of institution and

remarks of faculty members. These three variables, which no other known study hasconsidered, were included because we believe that software piracy among students is likely tobe in¯uenced by these factors. Detailed justi®cations for including all the independent variablesare discussed in the next section. Thus, the normative model as displayed in Fig. 1 should beregarded as a re®nement over the empirical models reported in the past literature. The lastindependent variable was the support of students for the introduction of software relatedcopyright laws.In the following sections, each independent variable is discussed with justi®cation given for

Fig. 1. Research model.


its inclusion in the model. Moreover, hypotheses which are drawn based on the variables arealso postulated.

4.1. Gender

There is a debate concerning the impact of gender on software piracy. Some studies (Oz,1990; Davis & Welton, 1991) found no signi®cant di�erence between the willingness of maleand female students to commit illegal copying of software. This contrasts with other ®ndings(Simpson, Banerjee & Simpson, 1994; Sims, Cheng & Teegen, 1996; Wong, 1985) whichreported male students pirated software signi®cantly more often than female students.Although, there is a di�erence between a student's willingness to pirate software, and his/heractual use of pirated software, psychology literature indicates that these two are often highlycorrelated (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). In this study, we argue that male students are moreenthusiastic about computers, and spend more time with computers than female students. Ourargument is in line with existing literature that indicates that computer use is generally viewedas a masculine activity (Williams, Ogletree, Woodburne & Ra�eld, 1994). The di�erences incomputer use between male and female students could be due to their abilities or motivation(Makrakis, 1993, 1992). Hence, the greater use of computers by male students is likely toincrease their need for using a variety of software packagesÐmany of which may not beavailable in their academic places. As such, male students would be more curious to obtain anduse software from other sourcesÐsome of which are pirated. Thus, the following hypothesis ispostulated:

H1: More male students are likely to use pirated software than female students.

4.2. Personal Computer ownership

Students who own a personal computer are likely to spend more time with a PC. They arecurious to perform more varieties of tasks than students who do not own a personal computer.To meet this higher level of curiosity, a student owning a PC is likely to obtain and use piratedsoftware. This notion is supported by Wong et al. (1990) who reported increased use of piratedsoftware among those Hong Kong students who owned a personal computer. Moreover, thelack of monitoring mechanisms on the use of software at home would further encourage themto use pirated software. This leads to the following hypothesis:

H2: More students owning a PC are likely to use pirated software than those who do notown a PC.

4.3. Parental income

Past empirical studies (Solomon & O'Brien, 1990; Wong, Kong & Ngai, 1990) found norelationship between economic background of a student and his/her subsequent use of pirated


software. We argue however that the higher the parental income of a student, the more likely itis that he/she can a�ord original copies of software. In contrast, parents with a low income aremore likely to place priority to meet fundamental needs (such as housing, fooding, clothing,medication, transportation and education) of their children. As such, these parents lack theluxury of allocating adequate money to their children to buy original copies of software whichare often expensive. As such, students with low parental income may resort to alternativesources to obtain cheap copies of pirated software. Thus, the following hypothesis is drawn:

H3: More students with low parental income are likely to use pirated software than thosewith high parental income

4.4. Computer experience

Students with less computer experience are expected to use computers for completing onlythose tasks that they are required to perform in their class rooms. They are however unlikelyto be adventurous enough to try a wide variety of software packagesÐother than those thatare provided in their educational institutions. On the other hand, the more computerexperienced students have, the higher will be their knowledge and literacy about how to usesoftware. Therefore, the frequency and duration of software use will increase (Loch & Conger,1996). The increased interaction is likely to enhance their need to explore a variety of softwarepackages to perform their tasks. Many of these software packages may not be available intheir academic places. Hence, experienced students may opt for pirated software. This notion issupported by Wong et al. (1990) who found greater software piracy among computerexperienced students. Moreover, it is argued that experienced students would consider use ofpirated software as a challenge to their competence. Thus, the following hypothesis ispostulated:

H4: More computer experienced students are likely to use pirated software than those whohave less experience.

4.5. Geographical location of institution

Students studying in educational institutions located in remote areas are less likely to usepirated software when compared to students studying in city areas. This is because of the easyaccess the city students have to software shops, which often sell pirated copies of software.This is particularly true for Brunei Darussalam as most of the businesses including softwareretail shops are located in the capital city. Thus, students in remote areas have less access topirated software, as few computer shops are located in remote areas. Based on this rationale,the following hypothesis is postulated:

H5: More students studying in city areas are likely to use pirated software than thosestudying in remote places.


4.6. Type of educational institution

In general, higher academic institutions like universities allocate more ®nancial resources forsoftware compared to lower level institutions (e.g. trade colleges). Thus, university studentshave greater access to a wide range of the latest software packages as opposed to those of thelower level academic institutions. Consequently, university students experience less need forusing pirated software. Moreover, higher institutions are more likely to have anti-piracyregulations. Furthermore, higher institutions have adequate computer centre manpower tomonitor the violation of such regulations. The existence of such a formal policy prohibitingsoftware piracy is likely to discourage students from engaging in software piracy. It is becauseviolation of such a policy may lead to a sanction on the students (for example students whoare found to use pirated software may not be allowed to use a laboratory for a few weeks)(Taylor & Shim, 1993). On the other hand, many trade colleges do not have adequate budgetsto meet the software requirements of students, and often lack a well-equipped computer centre.As such, monitoring of pirated software among students on these campuses is almost non-existent. Thus, the following hypothesis is drawn:

H6: More students studying in trade colleges are likely to use pirated software as opposed tothose studying in higher institutions.

4.7. Faculty remarks

The use of pirated software by students is expected to be higher when they ®nd that the facultymembers of their institution do not care much about software piracy, and do not discouragestudents by making anti-piracy statements. Students may even ®nd their faculty members usingpirated software. This notion is supported by Solomon and O'Brien (1990) who reported thatmany faculty members who practised software piracy actually encouraged students to emulatetheir behaviour (Solomon & O'Brien, 1990). On the other hand, software piracy among studentscould be less in those educational institutionsÐwhere the faculty members take seriously theissue of piracy, and openly condemn the practices of pirated software. In short, anti-piracyremarks by faculty members are likely to discourage students to commit software piracy, whilecarelessness on the part of faculty members may lead to the feeling that software piracy isacceptable by faculty as well. Thus, the following hypothesis is drawn:

H7: More of those students who have heard anti-piracy remarks from faculty members areunlikely to use pirated software, than those who have not heard any remarks from theirfaculty members.

4.8. Copyright laws

The introduction of copyright laws is considered an important tool to discourage people tocommit software piracy. Software copyright laws have been in place in most of the western


countries for quite some time, it is however new in Asia, where the protection of intellectualproperty is viewed as a western concept, and thus have little place in the society (Altback,1999). Thus, students who cherish the view that copyright law is a western concept meant toexploit poor Asians, are less likely to support the introduction copyright law, and wouldcontinue to use pirated software. In contrast, those students appreciate the need for intellectualproperty and believe that software piracy is harmful for the healthy growth of the softwareindustry, are more likely to support the introduction of copyright laws. They may also stopusing pirated software. On this basis, the last hypothesis is drawn:

H8: More of those students who support the introduction of software copyright laws areunlikely to use pirated software, than those who do not support such laws.

The dependent and independent variables as portrayed in Fig. 1 were measured using eithera categorical or dichotomous scale. Table 2 as shown below summarises the de®nitions andscales used for each variable.

Table 2A summary of research variables

Variable De®nition Scale Range ofacceptable

values

Use of pirated

software

Pirated software is used by the

computing students to support or meetsome purposes

Dichotomous Yes/No

Gender Sex type of student Categorical Male/female

PC ownership The availability of a personal computerat the home of a student

Dichotomous Yes/No

Parentalincome

Parental income is de®ned as themonthly earnings of the parents or

guardians of the students. It ismeasured in Brunei dollars

Categorical High (>B$1000),Low (<=B$1000)

Computer

experience

Computer experience has been de®ned

as the number of years a student isusing personal computers

Categorical Novice (<1 year experience) and

matured (between 1 to 3 years)

Geographical

location ofinstitution

Geographical location refers to the

physical location of an educationalinstitute

Categorical City area includes Bandar Seri

Begawan (the capital), while remotearea refers to a district locatedfarfrom the capital

Type ofinstitution

Institution refers to the tertiary andtrade institutions only

Categorical Trade colleges, and higherinstitutions

Facultyremarks

It refers to the fact that whether thefaculty members have discouraged

openly software piracy

Dichotomous Yes/No

Introductionof Copyright

laws

It refers to the fact that whetherstudents support or do not support

copyright laws

Dichotomous Yes/No


5. Research approach

A survey research approach was adopted to examine the use of pirated software bycomputing students in Brunei Darussalam. A questionnaire was developed which wasdistributed to 120 computing students during the last quarter of 1996. The details ofquestionnaire design and population selection are narrated below.

5.1. Questionnaire design and validation

A questionnaire was prepared on the basis of the research questions, and the normativemodel as discussed in Section 3. The questionnaire was divided into two parts. Part A capturedbackground information about students, while Part B collected information regarding thereasons for using pirated software and the types of tasks performed with such software. Part Balso asked students whether they had used any pirated software. Lastly, Part B solicited theviews of the participating students on the introduction of software copyright laws in BruneiDarussalam. As a whole, the questionnaire was basically structured in nature, and containedclose-ended questions. The questionnaire was reviewed by several academics. Later, the validityof the questionnaire was examined through a pilot test among selected computing studentsdrawn from two institutions. Based on their suggestions, several alterations were incorporated.

5.2. Population

The target population was the computing students currently enrolled in undergraduatecomputer programmes at various academic institutions in Brunei Darusalam. BruneiDarussalam is a small oil-rich kingdom with a population of 0.3 million (Borneo Bulletin,1998). Therefore, it is not surprising that currently there exists only two trade colleges (anengineering college and a technical college), a technical institute and a university in BruneiDarussalam. All these institutions are located in the city area (capital), with the exception of atrade college (in fact it is an engineering college) which is located in a remote area far from thecapital city. The trade colleges currently o�er an undergraduate National Diploma in computerstudies, while the technical institute o�er an undergraduate Higher National Diploma incomputer studies. Upon successful completion of National Diploma from trade colleges,students may undertake a Higher National Diploma programme at the technical institute(Anonymous, 1995). University Brunei Darussalam, the only university in Brunei o�ers ®rstand second year components of Bachelor degree in Computer Science, while the remaining®nal year components are conducted by a UK-based university (under a joint-collaborationagreement) (Anonymous, 1998). Telephone contacts with the Head of computer departments ofthese four institutions revealed that a total number of 120 students were enrolled on theseundergraduate diploma and Bachelor degree programmes in computer studies. Due to thesmall size of the population, the ®nal revised questionnaires were distributed among all these120 computing students.


6. Results

Results obtained from the survey are presented using descriptive analysis, tabulations andparametric statistical analysis like z-tests. Non-parametric analysis such as chi-square (w2) testswere used whenever necessary. The results are presented in the following sequence: ®rstly thebackground pro®le of the surveyed students is presented, secondly the proportion of studentsthat admitted to using pirated software is determined, and the tasks as well as the reasons forusing pirated software are identi®ed. Lastly, the results of z-tests are described to validate thehypotheses. A software package, Minitab Release 10.5, was used to conduct statistical analysis.A total of 91 completed questionnaires were received. The response rate was 76%Ðwhich is

quite satisfactory for the purpose of this study. The background pro®le of the participatingstudents is summarised in Table 3. The dominance of female students is clearly visible. This isnot unexpected, because telephonic discussions with the Head of the Computer Departments ofthe surveyed institutions revealed that more female students were undertaking computerstudies/science courses at the time of the survey.Parental income of the surveyed students varied widely from less than B$1000.00 to more

than B$5000.00 per month. However, nearly three fourths (71%) of the students came fromfamilies with a high parental income. It is thus not surprising that a majority (73%) of theparticipating students had a personal computer at home for their exclusive use.Table 3 also indicates that a slight majority (56%) of the students were novice PC users, as

they had less than one year of computer experience. A discussion with several participatingstudents revealed that most of them procured PCs for their home use after enrolling intocomputing courses, and that they had received little exposure to PCs during their previousstudies in schools. The remaining 44% of students were found to have between 1 to 3 years ofPC experience. The background of these students revealed that many of them had successfullycompleted a National Diploma in computer studies from trade colleges (which took two and ahalf years to complete), and were currently undertaking either a Higher National Diploma orBachelor degree programme. As such, it is quite conceivable that they had gained nearly threeyears of PC experience. Table 3 further highlights that most of the surveyed students camefrom the academic institutions located in city areas. This ®nding is understandable becauseonly one Trade College was located in a remote district area.Out of 91 students, 58 admitted having used pirated copies of software. This comprises 64%

of the surveyed students. A higher proportion of male students however used pirated softwareas opposed to their female counterparts. Furthermore, one third (34%) of the surveyedstudents reported that they had allowed someone else to make copies of software that they hadacquired legally. Once again, a higher proportion of male students was found to allow othersto copy their original software. This is re¯ected in Fig. 2.A chi-square test was performed in order to gain further insight about the use of pirated

software and allowing others to copy software. The results (w2=14.378, df=1, p-value:0.00014) suggest that using pirated software and allowing someone else to make copies oforiginal software go hand in hand.The students were asked to indicate the types of tasks for which they had used pirated

software. Their responses are divided into three broad groups, and are shown in Table 4. It issurprising to ®nd that the use of software was not limited to the completion of class


assignments. Students used pirated software for entertainment purposes, and to develop non-academic applications as well.Table 4 further indicates that 55 out of those 58 students who admitted using pirated

software, used such software for entertainment purposesÐyielding 95% use within the piratesample. A pirate sample is de®ned as those students who admitted to have used pirated copiesof software. In this study, the pirate sample consists of 58 students. Another observation isthat only one third (32%) of the surveyed students used pirated software for completion ofclass assignments. However, a disturbing observation is that some students (21%) used piratedsoftware to develop applications that are not related to their studies. This implies that studentsmight have used pirated software to develop applications for others. The responses of thepirate students were further analysed in terms of gender, and the results are shown in Fig. 3. Ahigher proportion of male students were found to use pirated software to perform all the threecategories of tasks. A noticeably higher proportion of male students however used piratedsoftware for entertainment as opposed to completion of class assignments and development ofnon-academic applications. Chi-square tests further con®rms the existence of a relationshipbetween gender of student and their use of pirated software for entertainment purpose(w2=6.637, df=1, p-value=0.0099).The students were further asked to cite the reasons for using pirated copies of software for

class assignments. Out of 91 students, only 29 admitted to use pirated software for completionof class assignments. Their responses are summarised and are listed in Table 5. The necessityof completing class assignments in the face of scarce computing resources appeared to be themajor motivation for resorting to pirated software.

Table 3Background pro®le of the students

Number Percent

GenderMale 35 38Female 56 62

Parental income

Low 26 29High 65 71

PC ownership

Yes 66 73No 25 27

Computer experience

Novice 51 56Matured 40 44

Type of institution

Higher institutions 57 63Trade colleges 34 37

Location of institutionCity area 68 75

Remote 23 25


The last question solicited the views of the computing students regarding the introduction ofsoftware copyright laws in Brunei Darussalam. The responses of the students were mixed. Aconsiderable portion (44%) of the surveyed students did not support the introduction ofsoftware copyright laws. Once again, a higher proportion of male students were found toobject (54% of male students) to the introduction of software copyright laws in contrast tothat of (37%) female students. Chi-square tests however did not ®nd any signi®cantrelationship between gender and their views regarding the introduction of copyright laws(w2=2.463, df=1, p-value=0.116).All the eight hypotheses as introduced in Section 4, were investigated using z-tests at 5%

signi®cance level. The hypotheses, along with their respective z-scores, p-values, and summarydata are shown in Table 6.It can be observed that except for hypotheses H1 (student gender), H2 (PC ownership) and

H4 (computer experience of students), the remaining ®ve hypotheses were not supported by thesurvey results. In other words, none of the research variables under institution parametersappear to have a signi®cant impact on the use of pirated software. Surprisingly, the use ofpirated software was not found to be e�ected by their support for the introduction ofintellectual copyright laws. On the other hand, three (e.g. gender, PC ownership and computerexperience) out of four student parametersÐappear to be related to students' use of piratedsoftware, while parental income seems to be insigni®cant. Lastly, software piracy was notfound to depend on the support of students for the introduction of copyright laws. Theimplication of these ®ndings is discussed in the following section.

Fig. 2. Use of pirated software based on gender.


7. Discussions

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of the participating computing students in Brunei Darussalam werefound to use pirated copies of software. Although no information is currently available onwhat proportion of computing students elsewhere uses pirated software, some studies (Taylor& Shim, 1993; Solomon & O'Brien, 1990; Kowalski & Kowalski, 1990) provide evidence thatover half of the university students in US and Canada use pirated software. Thus, the softwarepiracy rate among computing students in Brunei seems to be higher than those reported in US(Taylor & Shim, 1993; Solomon & O'Brien, 1990) and Canada (Kowalski & Kowalski, 1990).There could be two possible explanations. First, US and Canadian studies reported thesoftware piracy rate among general student populations, while Bruneian students in our samplewere undertaking full time computing programmes. As such, unlike students undertakingprogrammes in other disciplines, Bruneian computing students are more likely to develop theskills and know-how necessary to pirate software. Second, software copyright law was notintroduced in Brunei Darusalam at the time of the survey, because as a developing country,Brunei is entitled to delay the date of application of intellectual property rights laws to January1, 2000 (Stephen, 1997). As such, many computing students in Brunei perhaps did not view

Table 4Tasks performed with pirated software

Percent of useTasks No. of students

Whole sample (n=91) Pirate sample (n=58)

Rank

Entertainment 55 60 95 1

To complete class assignments 29 32 50 2To develop non-academic applications 19 21 33 3

Fig. 3. Tasks performed using pirated software based on gender.


copying of original software, and using it as illegal. It may be noted that software copyrightlaws have been in place for quite some time in US, Canada and most European countries.This study further found that only one third (34%) of the students had allowed someone else

to make copies of software that they had acquired legally. This is much lower than that ofHong Kong (Wong, Kong & Ngai, 1990), where 90% of students allowed others to makecopies of their software. A discussion with the students revealed that students usually allowtheir best friends or close relatives to make copies of their software that they had procuredlegally. It is thus not surprising that the rate of permitting others to copy software (which is34%), is lower than the rate of making copies (which is 64%) of original software by studentsthemselves.The two ®ndings (as described in the above two paragraphs) together imply that a

considerable proportion of Bruneian computing students not only received copies of piratedsoftware from other sources (including other students), but they themselves became sources ofpirated software through allowing others to copy their pirated software. This observation isfurther con®rmed by the chi-square tests.Entertainment appeared to be the most prominent purpose for which the Bruneian

computing students had used pirated copies of software. Perhaps, these students believed thatpirated games software are not used for pro®t purposes, as such, when a game software ispiratedÐnobody is actually harmed. They could have also thought that software companiesresponsible for developing games software make so much money that a few pirated copies bystudents would not hurt their business. While it may be true that large companies are too bigto be a�ected, the people who work there are surely hurt. It thus seems likely that thecomputing students have overlooked the fact that the creative teams (including programmers,writers, graphic artists and others) who develop the games software deserve fair compensationfor their e�orts to produce entertainment software that greatly enhanced students' leisure time.In addition to entertainment, students also used pirated software to complete class

assignments and to develop applications for others. A majority of those students who had usedpirated software to complete class assignments indicated a lack of adequate software resourcesat the department as the key incentive to use such software for class assignments. Thissituation is not only encountered in Brunei Darussalam, as Wong et al. (1990) reported thatHong Kong students felt the lack of readily available software as a reason for resorting topirated software. However, students' use of pirated software to develop applications for othersis a disturbing ®nding. Once again, a verbal discussion with some of the participating studentsrevealed that many of these students used pirated software during their industrial attachment

Table 5Reasons for using pirated software for class assignments

Number PercentReasons (n=29) (n=29)

Original software is not available in the department 11 38

Original software is available in the department,but there is little access 21 72


period (a part of student's study programme), whereby they had received pirated software todevelop some applications for the organisations they were attached with.Another important ®nding is that a considerable proportion (44%) of the students did not

favour introduction of copyright laws. This is not unexpected because students used piratedsoftware for class assignments. An introduction of copyright laws would prohibit them fromusing such software, and as a result, they fear receiving less satisfactory grades. Moreover, itwould be di�cult for them to obtain pirated games software from computer shopsÐas most ofthe computer shops will be reluctant to sell openly pirated software once copyright laws areintroduced. Furthermore, it is believed that most of the surveyed students were notpsychologically prepared enough to pay for the original copies of games software.Interestingly, statistical tests found no relationship between students who used pirated

software and their support for the introduction of copyright laws. In other words, nosigni®cant di�erence was observed in the use of pirated software between those students whosupported copyright laws and those who did not. Perhaps, it is because students are morein¯uenced by the bene®ts of their actions (i.e., piracy), than by the legality of piracy. This®nding is also consistent with that reported by Swinyard et al. (1990) who found that thoseSingaporean students who used pirated software were more concerned with the consequences

Table 6Results of z-tests

Used piratedHypotheses No. software % z-score p-value

H1: Student genderMale 35 28 0.80 2.557 0.0052

Female 56 30 0.53H2: PC ownershipOwn a PC 66 51 0.77 4.358 0.0001

Does not own a PC 25 7 0.28H3: Parental incomeLow 26 18 0.69 0.690 0.2450High 65 40 0.61

H4: Computer experienceMatured 40 33 0.82 3.300 0.0010Novice 51 25 0.49

H5: Geographical locationCity area 68 45 0.66 0.828 0.2960Remote area 23 13 0.56

H6: Type of institutionTrade colleges 34 20 0.58 ÿ 0.781 0.7820Higher institution 57 38 0.66

H7: Faculty remarksDid not hear remarks 61 37 0.60 ÿ 0.877 0.8100Heard remarks 30 21 0.70

H8: Introduction of copyright laws

Support 51 32 0.63 ÿ 0.223 0.4129Did not support 40 26 0.65


of copying, they did not care much about its legality. Thus, unless such laws are stronglyenforced, mere laws would not be e�ective in curbing software piracy. As long as piratedsoftware is easily available students would continue to use them regardless of their level ofsupport for copyright laws.Statistical analysis however con®rmed a relationship between gender of students with their

use of pirated software. It is not surprising because even though only 35 students out of 91surveyed students were male, a higher proportion (80%) of male students used pirated softwareas opposed to that of (53%) female students. It may be due to the di�erences in ethicalsensitivity or moral orientation of male and female students. Some previous research in thepsychological discipline (D. Davis, Unpublished paper presented at American SociologicalAssociation meetings in Montreal, Canada; Lueptow, 1981) indicate that females, in general,are more concerned with helping people, while males are more interested in income andadvancement. Thus, it is not surprising that more male students used pirated software to gainbene®ts as opposed to their female counterparts. More studies are still needed to investigatethis issue.Statistical analysis also con®rmed a relationship between students' use of pirated software

with their PC ownership. This ®nding suggests that when students buy PCs they tend to believethat the computer industry somehow owe them free software. Students perhaps view thatsoftware is free, and that no additional investment is necessary to obtain them. In other words,students may consider that they should invest in hardware rather than software. This notioncould be due to the fact that in Brunei Darussalam most of the computer vendors installpirated software in hard-disks in order to promote their computer sale. Thus, whenever astudent buys a computer he or she receives a range of pirated software free of charge. As such,it is di�cult for the students to comprehend that software may sometimes be more expensivethan hardware.Use of pirated software by students was further found to be related to their computer

experiences. This seems to indicate that when a student uses a PC for some time, he or shetends to develop a need to use a greater variety of software packages. It is perhaps because themore a student interacts with a PC, the more con®dence he or she gains. As a student becomesmore con®dent about a PC, his or her desire to perform more variety of tasks also increases.To accomplish these tasks, students require a variety of software, some of which may not beavailable to them. Consequently, students seek pirated copies from friends and other sources.The presence of signi®cant relationships (as identi®ed by this study) between students' use of

pirated software with gender, PC ownership, and computer experience were compared withprior studies. For instance, Simpson et al. (1994) and Sims (1996) in their studies found genderan important factor that was related with software piracy, while Wong et al. (1990) reportedPC ownership and computer experience as signi®cant factors that a�ected software piracy bystudents. Therefore, this study con®rmed some of the existing ®ndings.In this study, the parental income of students appeared to have an insigni®cant in¯uence on

the student's use of pirated software. This indicates that software piracy is practised equally bystudents regardless of their parental earnings. There could be several possible explanations.First, if students themselves lack regard for the intellectual e�ort of the developers whoproduce quality software products, they would not persuade their parents to allocate anecessary budget for the acquisition of original software. Moreover, both parents and students


themselves ®nd readily available cheap pirated software on the Brunei computer market. Assuch, parents would not be interested in buying expensive software for their children.Furthermore, although some parents managed to obtain loans from ®nancial institutions toprocure computers for their children, such loans generally do not cover the price of originalsoftware.Statistical results further indicated that the use of pirated software was not dependent on the

type and location of the institutions. In other words, software piracy is equally prevalent athigher institutions and trade colleges as well as in city and remote areas.A total of 30 students out of 91 participating students (33%), heard their faculty members

speak against software piracy. Out of these 30 students, 21 however disregarded facultymembers' advice, and continued to use pirated software. Although, this ®nding is unpleasant, adiscussion with the students revealed that the faculty members' discouragement was verbal, andcasually made. Moreover, those faculty members who spoke against software piracyÐactuallydid not enforce their anti-piracy feelings. Thus, the students did not perceive any threat whileusing pirated software in their laboratory classes. As such, it is not astonishing that despitesome faculty members' anti-piracy remarks, students continued to use pirated software.The last ®nding is quite thought provoking. Software piracy was found to be strongly

prevalent among those students who supported the introduction of copyright laws. Thisindicates that even though some students who appreciate intellectual copyright law and evensupported its implementation, tend to violate such laws when necessary. In other words, theyplace more priority on their need to perform a task with a pirated software, rather than on thelegality of using a pirated software. It may be possible that they may morally feel guilty ofusing pirated software even though they use pirated software. More studies are however neededto examine this issue.

8. Conclusions

The implication of this study is that pirated software is used by a large proportion ofcomputing students in Brunei Darussalam. This ®nding supports the belief that software piracyis pervasive in academiaÐwhich is consistent with the existing literature. Game software forentertainment purpose appeared to be most popularly pirated and used. This indicates thatstudents may have overlooked the e�orts spent by the developers who are trying hard toenhance leisure time of other people including students. On the matter of class assignments,many students viewed software piracy as necessary due to an inadequate provision of computerresources on campus. As new software appears on the market at a very fast and frequent pace,the educational institutes, like academic institutes in other parts of the world, ®nd it di�cult toprovide the latest software to the students at the right time. As a result, students tend to seekalternative means to gain access to such softwareÐusually through software piracy. We thusconsider that if the software requirements of the students are met at the right time, the practiceof software piracy could decrease in the educational institutions.We thus put forward ®ve speci®c suggestions. Firstly, we urge academic institutions to adopt

a liberal policy for software acquisition. The management of academic institutions shouldchange their philosophies and should recognise that they meet a commitment to prepare a


budget for software as much as hardware. Those people responsible in providing thecomputing needs of students often overlook this important aspect. A generous software budgetmay help to deter software piracy among students, because if the students ®nd software legallyavailable in their academic places, they may be less likely to look for pirated software.Secondly, we recommend the inclusion of IT related ethics in the computing course curriculumso that students' awareness concerning computer-related ethical practices can be raised. Oncestudents are educated on the impact of software piracy, they may change their attitude, andmay begin to appreciate the need for protection of an intellectual product like software. Thismay reduce copying of games software, monitoring of which is often beyond the means ofmost faculty members.

Thirdly, a code of ethics should be introduced by the academic institutions, which all thestudents should read and sign upon their enrolment. One weakness of this suggestion is that itmay breed hypocrisy and cynicism if students fail to understand the harm that is caused whena software is stolen. However, hypocrisy could be reduced if academics always preach againstthe perils of software piracy. In this connection, we also suggest that academics should use`practical classes' as an opportunity to demonstrate to the students the di�culties and painassociated with software development. Once the students themselves learn how tedious anddi�cult it is to develop a software during practical classes, they will begin to appreciate thee�orts spent by the developers to produce quality software products. As such, they are likely tounderstand the justi®cation for the signing of a code of ethics during their enrolment, and maytry to abide by those codes.

Fourthly, The responsibility of implementing such code of ethics should also lie with thefaculty members. For instance, faculty members should advise students to abide by copyrightlaws. On the matter of class assignments and student projects, faculty members should askstudents to attach evidences of the purchase of original software, if students use softwarewhich are not supplied by the university. Faculty members should caution students that theymay turn down students' assignments and/or projects if these are developed using piratedsoftware. Such a strict policy may further discourage students to look for pirated software.

Lastly, we suggest that ®nancial institutions in Brunei Darussalam, which sometimes o�erlimited loans to enable students to procure a computer, should introduce more aggressiveschemes. Such schemes should allow students to acquire authentic software. Moreover,computer vendors should devise new marketing plans, like the introduction of a credit scheme,and a subsidised down payment that would allow students to obtain original copies ofsoftware. It is thus hoped that these ®ve multifaceted approaches would help academicinstitutions to deter software piracy in campus.

This study also examined the in¯uence of academic institutions on software piracy, which noother known studies had addressed before. Unfortunately, their impact was found to beinsigni®cant, but this study con®rmed the impact of gender, computer experience and PCownership on software piracy. We thus advise that ethics in a computing curriculum should bedesigned in such a way that di�erences in software piracy due to sex, ownership of PC andcomputer experience are adequately addressed. For instance, those arguments that mayconvince female students may not attract the attention of male students. As such, di�erentlines of argument should be followed to discourage students from using pirated software.


Likewise, arguments discouraging piracy should also vary depending on the level of computerexperience of students.This study su�ers from a number of weaknesses. Many of the research variables, including

the `use of pirated software', were measured using a dichotomous scale. Consequently, theextent of software piracy that took place among computing students could not be measured.As such, parametric z-tests for testing di�erences could not be applied in analysing student'sresponses. Likewise, discouragement owing to faculty members' verbal remarks also needs tobe measured on a Likert scale instead of a dichotomous scale. Future researchers should keepsuch factors in mind for further studies.The normative model as used in this study has focused on parameters related to student

demography, their PC experience, support for copyright laws and academic institutions. Thismodel did not address students' attitude towards software piracy. We therefore recommend animprovement of this model by including `attitude' and `subjective norm', the two most widelyresearched variables in the psychology literature. Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) had proposed atheory known as Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) which suggests that attitude andsubjective norms together can explain volitional behaviour. Thus, future studies should applyTRA in order to determine the extent to which such a theory can explain the use of piratedsoftware among Bruneian computing students. In addition, `perceived moral value' thatstudents feel towards pirated software may also play a role in their decision related to usingpirated software. Thus, the impact of this variable should be examined in greater detail in therevised model. In this connection, we also recommend additional e�orts to compare theattitude and practice of pirated software among computing students with those of non-computing ones. Lastly, longitudinal studies should be performed so that software piracyamong the same set of computing students could be monitored during their entire period ofstudy. This would assist in evaluating the e�ectiveness of any ethics curriculum. It is widelybelieved that ethics may help in developing a favourable attitude of students towardsintellectual copy-right laws, and may bring a reduction in software piracy. The results of suchlongitudinal studies would provide evidence in favour or against such a claim.

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software piracy among computing students: a bruneian scenario

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