Table of content 5
Introduction 6
1. THE DIGITAL PIRACY AND THE RESEARCH OF ITS FACTORS 9
1.2 Cross-national studies 11
1.3 Demand-type models 14
1.4 Mixed models 23
1.5 Summary 24
2. THE EMPIRICAL RESEARCH DESIGN 26
2.1 Model of the empirical research 26
2.2 The methodology and instruments of the research 30
2.3. Summary 32
3. THE FACTORS INFLUENCING E-BOOKS PIRACY IN RUSSIA 34
3.1 Results 34
3.2 Discussion 37
3.3 Managerial implications 43
3.4 Summary 48
Conclusions 51
List of references 54
Appendix 58
The Internet gives a lot of opportunities for companies, but in the same time it imposes new challenges. Currently, digital piracy is an important topic of concern for the producers of different digital goods. Software publishers, music, movies and book publishing industries, even some TV-channels face this problem. It not only decreases their profits and make it more difficult for them to survive, but also provides less incentives to invest in the development of the new products.
The exact data on pirated products is difficult to find, because there is no central canal for the modern sharing methods. However, the estimations are quite impressive. The average global piracy rate for software only is 42%. The indicators in emerging economies are more than 50%. For instance, in Russia pirated software accounts for 68%. While the developed countries have lower piracy rates (US with 19%, France with 37%, UK with 25%) the real losses are bigger.
The governments of the many countries try to fight with this problem using the legal mechanisms. However, as it can be seen from the piracy rates, they cannot completely solve the problem. In the emerging markets, the business environment for the companies is even more complex: the copyright protection mechanisms are not yet well developed. While a government implements new laws and measures, the pirates find the ways to overcome new obstacles.
Russia is one of the examples of such countries. Recently Russian lawmakers introduced a set of anti-piracy laws that were supposed to reduce the number of the sites that illegally distribute the digital goods. This is, however, did not lead to expected results. The Russian presidents’ advisor on the Internet affairs German Klimenko described the decision of the eternal blocking of different torrent sites in Russia as “a bad comedy” .
Indeed, it is not a problem for the pirates to launch a new site, to use the server of a country that does not have the relevant laws or to use the mirror system. The most famous example is the Pirate Bay site. After many law processes and blockings that started more than five years ago, the site still operates.
Like this, the RuTracker site, the biggest piracy site of the Russian Internet, was blocked according to the court decision, but was almost immediately recreated on the other domain. What is more amazing about the situation is that just before the blocking the RuTracker conducted a survey among its user that asked whether they should delete the shares that were connected with the complaints of the copyright owners or just move to another domain.
Thus, it is a challenge for the companies to operate in the environment like this. And while they cannot change legal system, they may try to answer the challenges using the means they have.
In order to find the solution to the problem one should know the nature of the problem and the reasons behind it. In the case with the digital piracy, it is crucial to understand what factors influence this behavior. The understanding of the social and psychological models underlying the digital piracy seems to be a prerequisite for the development of the marketing communications strategy that would persuade consumers to stop or at least diminish the amounted of the pirated products.
Digital piracy is one of the problems of the contemporary world that arose due to the development of the technologies. It is damaging for companies, industries and governments, yet difficult to eliminate. An important step to the understanding of this problem and, therefore, to the understanding of the possible ways to handle it, is the identification of the factors influencing the digital piracy behavior.
The factors that influence digital piracy behavior are numerous: some of them are related to the external environment, while others have roots in the individual’s motives and desires. Cross¬national studies, focusing on external factors, such as technological, economic, cultural, demographic and institutional, and demand-type models, exploring internal motives to pirate of each particular individual are two main groups of studies that aim to determine the factors of digital piracy. Within them, a number of different approaches based on the scientific models and theories is applied.
For the purpose of this research the mixed model, the combination of the approaches of both study types was adopted. Namely, it was based on the Technology Acceptance Model and Social Cognitive Theory. To reduce the scope of the research and make it more specific, it was decided to choose the books piracy as the object of the research because it is a topic largely uncovered in the scientific literature relatively to other products. In addition, the study particularly focused on Russian digital content consumers.
