Music piracy: ethical perspectivesSteven Bonner

University College Dublin, Ireland, and

Eleanor O’HigginsUniversity College Dublin, Ireland and London School of Economics,

London, UK

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the issue of illegal downloading of music under an ethicallens.

Design/methodology/approach – The theoretical framework observed was one which includedthree independent variables: individual, situational and experimental elements. The dependentvariable of the study was legal vs illegal downloading of music. A 20-item questionnaire wascompleted by 84 respondents. The final four questions in the study were guilt-inducing questions(which the respondent was informed of in compliance with ethical primary research); the remainder ofthe questions were neutral in nature.

Findings – The paper finds that the respondents illegally download despite viewing the act asimmoral. Respondents choose to morally disengage from the non-ethical nature of the act in an attemptto avoid feeling guilty about illegal downloading and also to avoid any blame being attributed to thempersonally. Many respondents feel the act of illegal downloading is simply today’s reality and thatthere is nothing wrong or immoral about illegal downloading. Those who illegally download were lesslikely to attack the activity for being wrong. Active music fans were more likely to engage in illegaldownloading than passive ones. Being a student versus being gainfully employed did not affectdownloading behaviour.

Research limitations/implications – A limitation of the study was the difficulty in getting peopleto disclose the truth about their own ethical violations. A related limitation was the difficulty inobtaining respondents, since participation in such a study meant revealing their music consumptionbehaviour. However, in the end, social networking proved to be a successful way of recruitingparticipants.

Practical implications – The results cast light on the obstacles managers in the music businessface in eliminating music piracy.

Social implications – The results show the reasons for the difficulties in eliminating thiswidespread crime, because of the ethical ambiguity involved.

Originality/value – The study has the effect of explaining music piracy very clearly through theapplication of ethical/psychological theory. This has not been done before.

Keywords Ethics, Music industry, Copyright law, Computer crime

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction: music industry backgroundMusic is an art form which has been a part of our human lives from before the time ofJesus Christ; a man by the name of Jubal is historically understood to be the firstcreator of musical instruments according to the Catholic Version (Old Testament) ofthe Bible (Genesis 4:21). Music is comprised of a collection of sounds which generaterhythm. The method in which music is created has evolved greatly over time and todayelectronically-created music has become common practice. Music in its purest form isderived from a collection of sounds which have been creatively assembled by an

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Management DecisionVol. 48 No. 9, 2010

pp. 1341-1354q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0025-1747DOI 10.1108/00251741011082099

individual or a group of individuals for the sole purpose of invoking rhythm, whether itcomes from a drum, a guitar, a vocalists’ singing voice or indeed a multitude of musicalinstruments: piano, clarinet for example. Music could be perceived as the soundtrack tomodern peoples’ lives.

There are four “major” record labels which dominate the recorded music industry –Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMIwho serve a multitude of different markets and geographical regions (The Irish Times,2009a, b). It is evident that the music industry has changed drastically with theinception of the internet as a powerful communication and information-sourcingmedium. Many record executives hold the view that the internet has destroyed thestandard business model which has been in operation for decades – where thepurchasing of music occurred directly from one’s local or favourite record store. It isworth noting that the format in which we listen to music today has evolved greatlyover the last four decades with vinyl being the prominent format up to the 1960s,followed by the emergence of the tape cassette in the 1970s, followed closely by the CDin the 1980s, and presently mp3 format in the late 1990s/2000s.

1.1 The importance of this issueThe widespread activity of illegal downloading of music is a business issue formanagement of music companies. An understanding of what drives this activity and thereasons for its persistence globally despite numerous attempts to eliminate it throughpowerful corporate and regulatory interests has implications for industry players. Thispaper investigates this issue through an ethics/psychological lens. It identifies the mainoffenders of this illegal activity and examines the underlying factors that underpin thecommitment of such violations, to help us understand why those responsible act in sucha dishonest way. The music industry has been in meltdown ever since the arrival ofNapster, a site where users could download music from any musical artist (if indeed theirmaterial was uploaded to the Napster site). This created pandemonium where usersstarted freely uploading and downloading music files at rapidly colossal rates.Conversely, digital sales are on the increase, and the Apple iTunes store is testament ofhow money can still be made; it just requires significantly more effort than before.

1.2 The current ethical predicamentThe questions and issues that pertain to illegal downloading may be of importance inunderstanding the true ethical stance of individuals in the twenty-first century,especially insights about their purchasing behaviour. Does the internet cloud people’sperception of what is wrong and what is right, where cyberspace alienates one’s trueexistence in reality? This is quite relevant contemporarily, particularly with suchincreasingly high usage of the internet across the globe where internet addiction isincreasingly rife. Only recently a story in Beijing surfaced about Chinese teenagersbeing sent to a boot camp to tame their obsessive internet behaviour. China has up to300 million internet users, which is more than any other country in the world and isunderstood to be one of the most internet-crazed nations. Colonel Tao Ran definedinternet addiction as “spending more than six hours consecutively online per day forthree months”, and he says “it’s a symptom that other problems exist in the youngperson’s life” (RTE News, 2009a, b). Furthermore, if an individual is on the internet forprolonged periods, their tendency to illegally download may be quite high.

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2. The literatureThe literature shows how unethical behaviour in general comes about and is sustainedas individuals adopt psychological techniques to maintain themselves in a comfortzone, despite their unscrupulous conduct. To what extent does knowledge about theseunethical behaviours and attitudes in general apply to the question of illegaldownloading and how can it advance our understanding of this contemporary topicalissue?

2.1 Ethical originsWhy do people behave unethically, and often even without a feeling of guilt? Shu et al.(2009) shed light upon the act of dishonest behaviour in its purest sense, and thendelves into suggestions as to why people choose to morally disengage. Ethics iscommonly defined as the study of what is right and what is wrong and despiteindividual’s cognitive efforts to make this distinction between right and wrong,individuals may still choose to continue engaging in dishonest behaviour. Why do theydo so? Individuals seek to minimise the gap that separates their moral standards fromtheir actual actions in various ways. Festinger stresses that when actions and goals donot align, individuals feel distress due to cognitive dissonance, which arises whenbeliefs are at odds with behaviour (Festinger, 1957). People will seek to ease thedistress they feel or otherwise experience, by either changing their own behaviour tobring it closer to their own goals or through moral disengagement (Baumeister andHeatherton, 1996). Essentially, moral disengagement occurs where one makes harmfulconduct personally acceptable by persuading oneself of the view that the questionablebehaviour is actually morally tolerable, which in turn makes them feel better (Banduraet al., 1996; Bandura, 1990). It has also been found that higher consumption of animmoral good affect the values held by the consumer so that the good is considered lessimmoral (Ostling, 2009).

It is quite plausible how an illegal downloader would find reason to engage in illegaldownloading. If a question is put to illegal downloaders about whether illegaldownloading is morally acceptable or not, the respondents are quite likely to findreasons which validate the activity, rather than find reasons which attack the activity.This is due to the fact that they themselves engage in the activity, and do not wish tofeel guilty or have blame attributed to them by others or indeed anyone, for quitesimple and logical human reasons – to avoid feeling “bad”.

Hence, it is posited that:

H1. Individuals who illegally download will justify their illegal downloadinghabits thus eliminating any guilt they may feel regarding such activity.

2.2 The outcome bias in the realm of ethicsDo people judge the ethicality of two parties differently, despite the fact that theirbehaviour was the same? And if so, under what conditions are people’s judgments ofethicality influenced by outcome information? Extending prior work on the effect ofoutcome severity on judgments (Berg-Cross, 1975; Lipshitz, 1989; Gino et al., 2008a, b;Mitchell and Kalb, 1981; Stokes and Leary, 1984), it was found that people judge thewisdom and competence of decision makers based on the nature of the outcomes theyobtain. For instance, in one study participants were presented with a hypotheticalscenario that questioned respondents on whether or not a surgeon should perform a

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particularly risky operation. Upon reading about identical decision processes, it wasconfirmed to respondents as to whether the patient they were questioned upon lived ordied, and in turn respondents in this hypothetical study were asked to rate the qualityof the surgeon’s decision to operate. Interestingly it was found that when the patient infact died, participants decided it was a mistake to have operated in the first place(Baron and Hershey, 1988).

2.3 The identifiable victim effectThe identifiable victim effect refers to the tendency of people to be far more concernedabout showing more sympathy towards identifiable victims, rather than statisticalvictims (Shu et al., 2009). Merely informing people that a specific victim exists willactually lead to an increase in one’s caring of them. Surprisingly, this occurs withoutany information being given to the caring person about the victim (Small andLoewenstein, 2003). The victim in the context of this study is of course the band/artistand indirectly the recording company. Researchers Loewenstein et al. (2006) explainwhy people show more concern for identified victims than for statistical victims fortwo reasons: affect-based and cognitive-based reasons (Kogut and Ritov, 2005a; Jenniand Loewenstein, 1997). Small and Loewenstein (2005) posit that on the affective level,identification lessens the social distance between victim and responder. Specificallyspeaking, the same situation should generate more sympathy when it involves just theone identified victim, rather than when it involves many non-identifiable victims – thisbeing what they refer to as the singularity effect. On the cognitive level, Friedrich et al.(1999) emphasize how the singularity of victims explains the identifiable victim effect.They make use of the term “psychophysical numbing” which they say refers to thetendency for people to value lives less as the number of lives at risk increases.Moreover, the authors argue that identifying a singular victim leads people intobelieving that the single life affected actually represents an inconsistent percentage ofthe total threat. Therefore, by accentuating exactly which artists are most targeted,regarding their loss of income due to illegal downloading, some guilt may be inducedon the illegal downloader, particularly if they are an avid fan of the particularartist/musician under consideration.

2.4 Taming dishonestyDishonesty is hard to perceive since every person is solely in control of their ownthoughts and ideas. Moreover, despite society’s ability to shape an individual’s mind,“doing good” in the spirit of universalism will not affect an individual mindset if theyare not motivated towards such virtuous behaviour. In a paper concerning thedishonesty of typically honest people, Mazar and Ariely (2006) say that dishonesty canbe affected by internal and/or external incentives or motivators. A standard economicsperspective offers one possible reason for rampant dishonesty in our daily lives –external reward mechanisms, which accentuate how one’s probability of being caughtand the magnitude of punishment are the only ways to overcome dishonesty (Mazarand Ariely, 2006).

Such punishment for illegal downloading may exist in the form of:. A very hefty fine, as seen to the extreme in the media of late; notably the Thomas

verdict infringement in the USA, where a penalty of $1.92 million was imposedon Jammie Thomas-Rasset (CNET News, 2009).

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. The potential for obtaining malicious viruses from the actual act of downloading(some of these files are on the internet for a reason; to trick people into amultitude of virus-related issues).

. Tarnished reputation, and a lowering in the eyes of right-thinking people.

. Potential loss of precious computer material and a potential ban from internetconnectivity from one’s chosen internet provider. Moreover, it is plausible that ifthe three-strike rule were imposed by Eircom and all other internet providersalike, then users may be banned from all providers in such extremes.

2.5 The acquisition decision: pirate or buy?The central issue lies with the acquisition decision; the decision whether to attain musicvia legal means or illegal means. Chiou et al. (2005) explored this in a direct way.Idolisation of pop singers is based mostly on two important components: worship andmodelling (Raviv et al., 1996). Chiou et al. (2005) affirm that worship refers to an unusuallyintense admiration and reverence of an idol. Moreover, these researchers refer tomodelling, which is the desire to be like an idol, which may involve imitation of idolisedfigures by copying their dress, behaviour and subsequent codes of behaviour. Chiou et al.(2005) stress how behavioural expressions of idolisation can be seen as a series of ritualswhich involves activities such as listening to music in a group, thus collecting records, orjoining official band web sites to make themselves feel like a true fan. Therefore, it is verylikely that idolisation of a singer may not only affect a consumer’s overall attitude towardmusic piracy, but also directly affect their intentions toward music piracy of their idolisedsingers/bands. Additionally, the music and well-being of their potentially idolisedsingers/bands in some instances may prove to be quite important to particularly avid fansof that particular singer/band. This feeling of closeness may also directly affect theirintentions toward music piracy of the idolised artist/band. In turn this will influence one’sdecision to pirate or to buy. Musicians themselves may have experienced this closenesswith bands they admire and in many instances it is this closeness or admiration thatinspired them to get into music or pursue such a career or hobby themselves.

Therefore it is posited that:

H2. Individuals who exhibit moderate to strong satisfaction when listening tomusic they like, are more likely to illegally download music, since they havethe greatest listening needs for music and also for re-experience of artists’songs they love, as opposed to those who are more passive music fans.

2.6 Is it theft or sampling?In a study carried out by Siegfried and Ashley (2006), it was found that a greaterpercentage of students thought that most people, and especially students, copycommercial software instead of purchasing it. This accentuates today’s reality. Theresults revealed that students frequently copy or download music recordings illegally.What appears most incriminating is that:

College students are more likely to be aware of the sites on the internet from which piratedrecordings are available for download and they have the necessary computer skills to use thesoftware that converts audio CDs to mp3 format and, if they choose to do so, to copy them onCDs in either mp3 format, which can store ten albums on a single CD (National ResearchCouncil, 2000), or regular audio CD format (Siegfried and Ashley, 2006, p. 2).

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Digital music players have become omnipresent amongst college students, wherestudents can be seen listening to music in libraries and upon walking to and fromcollege. In the Siegfried and Ashley study, 84 percent of the respondents indicated thatthey play digital music on some form of device other than a computer. This percentageis likely to be even higher if the study were conducted today in 2009.

Consequently, it is posited:

H3. Students (i.e. third/fourth level) will engage in illegal downloading more sothan those who are non-students, since students have a broader network ofpeople for which to contact and explore, exchange and share music tastes.Moreover, students tend to be more aware of illegal downloading sites due totheir generation’s internet know-how and the wide network of informationthey have at their disposal.

Many listeners are only interested in the one or two songs per album that are playedfrequently on the radio. Moreover, the individual preference for sales of singles wouldexplain the popularity of sites such as iTunes.com over record store sales (Siegfried andAshley, 2006). Sites like www.spotify.com allow users to listen to extensive amounts ofmusic but do not permit downloading of such content; instead offering a servicedeveloped to entice listeners into purchasing the physical CD and promotes fair musicconsumption. However, illegal downloading still remains prominent and subsequentlydownloader’s attitudes and behaviours lead to the following hypothesis being posited:

H4. Those who download music illegally argue that the positives of illegaldownloading outweigh the negatives, in that an artist’s music gets heard, “outthere” or “known”, which is a core goal for any musician, if monetary gain istaken out of the equation. Moreover, local artists are more likely to reap thesebenefits or positives than global superstars.

3. Research approach3.1 Research designThe research was conducted by means of a 20-item questionnaire which testedrespondents’ attitudes to music, and to illegal downloading in general, as well as theirdownloading habits. Respondents were recruited primarily through social networkingweb sites, consistent with the nature of the theme of the study. There were 84respondents, a 42 percent response rate from 200 e-mails distributed. A total of 71 ofthe 84 respondents fell into the age group of 21-24.

The questionnaire was completed online and covered music consumed within thelast five years. The reason for this time frame is due the fact that the internet hasbecome more prevalent in this time frame, as a means of attaining music. The focus onstudents was based on the premise that students are the target group since they havesuch a wide network of information, have generally greater internet know-how (havinggrown up in the internet age) and are overall more advantageously placed in thisactivity, whether they engage in the activity or not. Students tend to have a broadrange of knowledge regarding internet capabilities and also tend to have a more avidinterest in music than later in their lives; as these are their college years where partiesand music often go hand-in-hand with college life. Therefore, they may havesubstantial knowledge of what music is popular and also have the know-how about toobtain files illegally via the internet due to their broad network.

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3.2 Conducting the surveyThe research adopted a self-administrated survey whereby the completedquestionnaires were received via e-mail or Facebook. A five-point Likert scaledesign, i.e. strongly disagree 1 – strongly agree 5 was used for many questions, as thiswould be user-friendly. Also, it was likely that this approach would heighten theaccuracy of the respondents’ answers, and lead to less invalid surveys, i.e. those whoanswered incorrectly or those which did not correspond with other answers given.

4. Results4.1 IntroductionThis section will address the findings of the survey as completed by the respondents andserve as an insight into how college students (the primary unit of analysis) together withhow non-students (the secondary unit of analysis) view illegal downloading. Tables I toVII are used throughout this section to show the prominence of the findings and to delveinto areas that were of particular interest regarding the projected hypotheses:

Enjoyment Mean n SD

1 – Not much 2.00 3 1.0002 2.33 3 0.577Neutral 2.25 16 1.1834 2.49 37 0.9015 – Complete hedonist 2.96 25 1.274Total 2.56 84 1.090

Table III.Mean report of unpaid-for

music and ones scaledenjoyment of music

Spearman’s rho Unpaid Enjoyment

UnpaidCorrelation coefficient 1.000 0.252 *

Sig. (one-tailed) 0.010n 84 84EnjoymentCorrelation coefficient 0.252 * 1.000Sig. (one-tailed) 0.010n 84 84

Notes: *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (one-tailed)

Table II.Correlation of unpaid-for

music and onesenjoyment of music

Spearman’s rho Wrong Immoral

WrongCorrelation coefficient 1.000 20.566 *

Sig. (two-tailed) 0.000ImmoralCorrelation coefficient 20.566 * 1.000Sig. (two-tailed) 0.000

Note: *Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed); a. Listwise n ¼ 84

Table I.Correlation of whetherone holds an immoral

view of illegaldownloading and

illegally downloads, withhow one scales the

morality/immorality ofillegal downloading

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H1. Individuals who illegally download will justify their illegal downloadinghabits thus eliminating any guilt they may feel regarding such activity.

There is a strong negative correlation concerning respondents’ response to how wrongthey view illegal downloading, in that respondents predominantly opted for answerswhich failed to correspondingly scale how immoral they view the activity. This isinconsistent given that they already confirmed a view on the activity as immoral in thefirst instance. Essentially, as one’s perception of immorality regarding illegaldownloading increases, their scaling of such immorality decreases or remains neutralto avoid feelings of guilt and to avoid experiencing cognitive conflict.

Spearman’s rho Unpaid Listening

UnpaidCorrelation coefficient 1.000 0.319 *

Sig. (two-tailed) 0.003n 84 84ListeningCorrelation coefficient 0.319 * 1.000Sig. (two-tailed) 0.003n 84 84

Note: *Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)

Table VI.Correlation of unpaid-formusic and how manyhours respondents spendlistening to music

Spearman’s rho Unpaid Age

UnpaidCorrelation coefficient 1.000 0.199 *

Sig. (one-tailed) 0.035n 84 84AgeCorrelation coefficient 0.199 * 1.000Sig. (one-tailed) 0.035n 84 84

Note: *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (one-tailed)

Table V.Correlation of unpaid-formusic and respondents’age

Spearman’s rho Unpaid Occupation

UnpaidCorrelation coefficient 1.000 0.035Sig. (one-tailed) 0.374n 84 84OccupationCorrelation coefficient 0.035 1.000Sig. (one-tailed) 0.374n 84 84

Table IV.Correlation of unpaid-formusic and respondents’occupation

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H1 confirmed that those who view illegally downloading as immoral together withrespondents’ corresponding activity, whether they illegally download or not despiteholding an immoral view:

H2. Individuals who exhibit moderate to strong satisfaction when listening tomusic they like, are more likely to illegally download music, since they havethe greatest listening needs for music and also for re-experience of artistssongs they love, in opposed to those who are more passive music fans.

With a p value of 0.10, there is some significance in the relationship between unpaidmusic and enjoyment. H2 is somewhat supported and can be accepted to a degree(given that it is one-tailed).

Table III conveys an upward logical correlation between unpaid for music andenjoyment of music, before declining slightly at the last stage at the scaled answer of 5(complete hedonist). Over 75 percent of respondents exhibit moderate to completehedonistic behaviour whilst listening to music and illegally download for that veryreason. Furthermore, H2 is supported since respondents’ unpaid activity increasesaccording to their enjoyment of music. Therefore, music hedonists (those who scaled ananswer of 5) are the individuals most likely to frequently consume music via illegaldownloading means, i.e. through peer-to-peer sites or from duplication, i.e. copying afriends’ music collection.

Spearman’s rho correlations Unpaid Desire Lifestyle Listening Enjoyment

UpaidCorrelation coefficient 1.000 0.540 * * 0.387 * * 0.319 * * 0.252 *

Sig. (two-tailed) 0.000 0.000 0.003 0.021n 84 84 84 84 84

DesireCorrelation coefficient 0.540 * * 1.000 0.324 * * 0.364 * * 0.213Sig. (two-tailed) 0.000 0.003 0.001 0.052n 84 84 84 84 84

LifestyleCorrelation coefficient 0.387 * * 0.324 * * 1.000 0.622 * * 0.608 * *

Sig. (two-tailed) 0.000 0.003 0.000 0.000n 84 84 84 84 84

ListeningCorrelation coefficient 0.319 * * 0.364 * * 0.622 * * 1.000 0.581 * *

Sig. (two-tailed) 0.003 0.001 0.000 0.000n 84 84 84 84 84

EnjoymentCorrelation coefficient 0.252 * 0.213 0.608 * * 0.581 * * 1.000Sig. (two-tailed) 0.021 0.052 0.000 0.000n 84 84 84 84 84

Notes: *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (one-tailed); * *correlation is significant at the 0.01level (one-tailed)

Table VII.Spearman’s rho

correlations – musiclifestyle overview of

respondents

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H3. Students (i.e. third/fourth level) will engage in illegal downloading more sothan those who are non-students, since students have a broader network ofpeople for which to contact and explore, exchange and share music tastes.Moreover, students tend to be more aware of illegal downloading sites due totheir generation’s internet know-how and the wide network of informationthey have at their disposal.

Students are seen as contributing considerably to the issue, but interestingly only studentage makes the relationship significant. However, the analysis shows that there is not anysignificance in the relationship between occupation and unpaid-for music. Moreover, H3is not supported, since a p value of 0.374 shows that the relationship between occupationand consumption of unpaid-for music is not significant, despite being positive.Interestingly, age does have a positive correlation with how much one illegallydownloads, with a P value of 0.035 observed in Table V. Essentially, H3 pertains tocollege students primarily, so the hypothesis is not fully supported on that premise:

H4. Respondents argue that the positives of illegal downloading outweigh thenegatives, in that an artist’s music gets heard, “out there” or “known”, whichis a core goal for any musician, if monetary gain is taken out of the equation.Moreover, local artists are more likely to reap these benefits or positives thanglobal superstars.

There is a strong positive correlation with the amounts of unpaid-for music consumedby an individual and the amount of hours they spend listening to music daily. A p valueof 0.003 gives a confidence level of 97 percent. Therefore H4 is valid and stronglysupported.

Figure 1 illustrates the incremental relationship existing between listening hoursand the amount of unpaid-for music amongst respondents – as the number of listeninghours increase, so do the number of illegal downloading items (albums) beingconsumed by an individual.

4.2 Key trends and variablesThe following is a summary of unpaid-for music (the dependent variable, scale of howlittle to how much one illegally downloads) with the ordinal variables:

. listening (how many hours you spend listening to music);

. desire (how often you feel the desire to find new music);

. enjoyment (how much you enjoy listening to music); and

. follower (the extent to which you feel part of a particular genre or style of music).

It is evident from the above summary of significant variables that desire is the mostsignificant at 0.01 level in explaining a relationship with unpaid-for music. The secondmost significant is listener also at the 0.01 significance level, followed closely byenjoyment – the third most significant, with a p value of 0.03. Being a follower of a genreor particular style of music is the next most significant, at a level of 0.05 significance.

5. Analysis, interpretation and implicationsThe findings demonstrate how individuals engage in illegal downloading despiteholding a view of the activity as immoral. The response for those who view illegal

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downloading as immoral yet who still illegally download, demonstrates how themajority of respondents opted for neutrality. This coincides with the academic theorywhich suggests that respondents will morally disengage, where respondents do notwish to feel guilty and in turn either remain neutral or condone the activity to avoidany feeling of guilt. Those who viewed illegal downloading as immoral yet who do notillegally download themselves, opted for an answer which went against the activity.This coincides with the theory also, which affirms that individuals are far more criticalof others than themselves and hence are against the activity in this instance, perhapssince they do not engage in the activity themselves.

Respondents are found to illegally download to varying degrees. Those who exhibithedonistic behaviour whilst listening to music, together with those with a moderate tohigh need for re-experience and also those whose listening needs are high in that theylisten to music for at least three hours or more a day, are the individuals who are moreprone to maximum illegal downloading. Additionally, they allow their emotional

Figure 1.Comparing confidence

intervals: illegaldownloading activity vslistening hours per day

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attachment and reactions to music to out-shadow any ethical principals they hold onthe issue of downloading, i.e. whether they view the activity as immoral and/ordamaging to the band/artist, whose music they illegally download, consistent withresearch that shows that consumption of immoral goods leads to prevarication aboutthe immorality of the act. Moreover, these respondents will illegally download –despite a feeling of wrongdoing. Respondents will continue to illegally download asthey feel no problem exists or they feel it is wrong but that if something is available forfree they will take it, rather than pay for it, which may prove immoral to many persons.

Is it right to say that the internet, despite its immense benefits, has causedirrevocable damage to music makers? It is hard to tell if the future of recorded musicwill become nothing more than a novelty for musicians where no cash return can beyielded and where musicians create and perform music to satisfy their own intrinsicneeds. Is there a viable solution to this wicked puzzle, where it seems every avenueends with an opposing solution via electronic loopholes? Free music is rampantlyavailable on the internet and artists can often be seen giving away their music forpromotion of their album. This acts as a sampler, which is something, music fans havebecome accustomed to with the emergence of the internet. It is deduced that files are soreadily available today that it becomes so easy for an internet user to find free musicalcontent and a matter of “clicks” can in some cases provide the user with not only analbum by the artist they like, but more shockingly their entire discography.

It is obvious that the issue of illegal downloading is not going to be resolved anytime soon, despite endless attempts at doing so, since the problem is far too vast anddifficult for any one party to monitor. However, part of a solution may still emerge intime, and lead to taming of such activity, perhaps through a greater understanding ofthe psychological forces that drive and maintain it, as evidenced in the research in thispaper. Until that time does come, musicians and record companies alike must continueto innovate or live in hope . . .

5.1 Recommendations for future researchFurther research could be based on experimental conditions whereby illegaldownloaders were forced to confront the nature of activities. What happens whenguilt is imposed upon them, since guilt may be something that ceases such activitydepending on the individuals’ personality and beliefs. What changes in behaviour andviewpoints come about when moral disengagement and motivated forgetting becomeimpossible through direct and continual reminding?

Tapping more deeply into the mind of the serial downloader could provide someinteresting insights into their motives for downloading so much content. Given that theestablishment and maintenance of unethical behaviour is often dependent on deviantgroup norms (Anand et al., 2005), and downloading is an isolated activity, researchshould study the role of virtual and real-world social networking in reinforcing illegaldownloading.

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Further reading

Bible.ca (2009), “They are digging up Bible stories!”, Bible.ca, available at: www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-start-here.htm (accessed 20 August 2009).

Kogut, T. and Ritov, I. (2005b), “The singularity effect of identified victims in separate and jointevaluations”, Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 97, pp. 106-16.

Corresponding authorSteven Bonner can be contacted at: deep.reasoning365@gmail.com

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