Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy
Among College Students
Brian Sheehan, James Tsao, SungUn Yang
Syracuse University
Abstract
This paper reports on a quantitative survey done at a large eastern university to
study motivations for gratifications of digital music piracy among college students. The
study found that Economic Utility, Collection Utility, and Social Utility all motivate digital
music piracy. A key finding was that Social Utility was the most important motivation for
illegal downloading. Looking at music piracy as a social phenomenon may be a key to
improving the effectiveness of anti-piracy strategies.
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Introduction
Digital music piracy is a significant problem that threatens the future of the music
production industry. The music industry federation estimates that 95 percent of music downloads
are pirated (Pfanner, 2009). Recent estimates put the lost revenue from illegal downloading at
$3.7 billion annually in the U.S. (IFPI Digital Music Report, 2008). The biggest group of
downloaders is college students, who are salient for their size as a group as well as their
frequency of downloading (Bott, 2006). It has been estimated that one out of three college
students downloads music illegally. They are especially problematic because two-thirds of those
who download do not care if the music is copyrighted or not (Richmond School of Law, 2006).
This has led the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to state that digital music
piracy among college kids is “especially and disproportionately problematic”
(http://riaa.com/faq.php, ¶ 31).
This paper reports on the second stage of a three-stage research project to examine digital
music piracy among college students. The first stage, completed in January 2009 (----------,
2009) was a qualitative research project with the goal of creating a cognitive map that would
correctly identify the specific motivations for digital music piracy among college students (See
Diagram 1). Further, the model aimed to identify specific factors that either reinforced or
detracted from college students’ motivation to download illegally. The current stage is a
quantitative research project with the goal of confirming, modifying or refuting the hypothetical
cognitive map. The specific purpose of this paper is to analyze the preconditions of motivations
and their relationship to gratifications for digital music piracy.
The future third stage will consist of developing and testing specific advertising concepts
based on the specific findings of this quantitative research. The ultimate goal will be to find
1
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
advertising concepts that are statistically significant in their ability to decrease illegal downloads
and/or increase the use of legal download programs among college students.
[Diagram 1 About Here]
The significance of this study is directly related to the economic magnitude of the
problem for the recording industry. For every illegally downloaded album there is one-fifth of a
lost sale (Bott, 2006). The billions of dollars being lost by illegal behavior has significantly
impacted the music industry and affected the economic livelihood of both established and rising
artists. Additionally, there is a societal cost when many citizens flout the law. Our project has
the potential to help the industry reclaim revenue that is rightly and legally theirs and to decrease
the societal cost of group lawbreaking.
Review of Literature
Listening to digital music is an essential part of the college lifestyle (-----------, 2009). As
students from a variety of ethnic, social, and economic backgrounds assimilate into a new,
shared learning environment, music becomes an important social agent that leads to the forming
of new norms. One of those norms is digital music piracy. Beyond its economic impact on the
music industry, digital music piracy may have significant social costs, including a widespread
moral relativism that makes frequent flouting of society’s inconvenient laws acceptable. Both
Uses and Gratifications and Social Cognitive Theory may be suitable frameworks for
interpreting this behavior. Specific psychological aspects of college-aged students that influence
their social behavior must also be considered. Previous studies of digital music downloading and
similar behavior, such as file sharing of motion pictures, should also be reviewed.
Uses and Gratifications
At its most basic level, illegal downloading behavior can be described from a Uses
and Gratifications (U&G) perspective. U&G emphasizes that people are in control of their
2
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
usage and their relationships with various media. A medium’s ability to meet a person’s
needs, or gratifications sought, including their desires for escapism, personal relationships,
personal identity, and surveillance of the world around them, will dictate whether a person
uses that specific medium (Blumler and Katz, 1974).
But what of a medium that is used illegally? In the 1950s, Schramm (cited in Baran
& Davis, 2006) devised what he called the fraction of selection to show how people choose
media. He claimed that people weigh the level of reward that they expect from a medium
or message against the effort that they have to make in order to get that message. For
music downloads, people weigh the instant gratification of getting the music they want
against the effort of going online and logging on to their file-sharing software. In this case
the gratification is enhanced by the fact that multiple files can be downloaded each time the
medium is used. For illegally downloaded music, it can be surmised that any fear, guilt, or
cost of being caught is factored in as well.
U&G theory has been resurgent with the growth of the Internet. The interactive
nature of the Internet underscores the power of choice each individual has over the media
they choose to use and how they choose to use it. Asynchroneity, defined as the ability to
send and receive messages at the users’ convenience (Chamberlain, 1994), is what allows
individuals to take greater control of interactive media. This includes the potential to send
and receive content that skirts the legal requirements to pay money for copyrighted
content. U&G has been empirically studied for more than three decades, providing a strong
foundational framework for examining music downloading behavior. The behavior of
music downloaders is undeniably proactive and choiceful, especially when downloading
illegally.
3
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Social Cognitive Theory
Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) posits that when a specific behavior has a positive
outcome it is likely to lead to a repeat of that behavior. Similarly, a negative outcome would
likely lead to a reduction or elimination of that behavior. An important aspect of SCT is that it
suggests that positive or negative outcomes do not need to be personally experienced to be
personally determined. They can be determined through social observation. In other words, a
person can determine potential outcomes either by personal experience or by observing the
experience of others (Bandura, 1977). As a specific example in relation to music piracy, if
college student “A” illegally downloads an album and realizes a significant cost savings, it will
increase the likelihood of college student “A” illegally downloading music in the future. On the
other hand, if college student “A” has a close friend (college student “B”) who is caught and
fined for illegal downloading, it will decrease the likelihood of student “A” illegally
downloading music in the future.
SCT is specifically useful for examining factors that either increase or decrease the
perceived positive or negative outcomes of any behavior. Regarding anti-music piracy
advertising, for example, SCT helps us look at the ability of advertising messages to increase
perceptions of personal risk and perceptions of socially-observed risk.
Psychological Aspects of College Students
Reasons for the high level of music piracy among college students are both behavioral
and psychological. Age is directly related to increased music piracy (Bhattacharjee, Gopal &
Sanders, 2003). Behaviorally, college students spend more time with the Internet than any other
medium. Over 30% of college students spend at least ten hours on the Internet, while 20% spend
twenty hours or more. (Burst Research, 2007) Psychologically, there are a number of specific
4
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
aspects of college-aged students’ mindset that are relevant to music piracy, including risk-taking,
sensation seeking, optimistic bias and anti-industry bias.
There is evidence that risk taking is related to age (i.e., younger people take more risks
than older people). Young people take risks in order to gain “varied, novel, complex or intense
experiences” (Zuckerman, 1994, p.27). The risks can be social, physical, legal or financial
(Zuckerman, 1979). As an example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in
their National College Health Risk Behavior Survey, found that college students frequently
engaged in risky behavior, while those over 25 were less likely to drink and drive. Weisskirch &
Murphy (2004), in a study of college students’ behaviors and attitudes toward Internet activities,
found higher levels of sensation seeking specifically for students who used the Internet to
download music, to obtain sexual content, and/or to send instant messages.
Risk taking is also socially related. James (1997) noted in his research that a common
excuse for breaking the law was that respondents felt they were just doing what everybody else
was doing. Looking at this same phenomenon from another angle, research respondents
consistently under-reported personal behaviors that they deemed to be socially undesirable and
over-reported behaviors that they saw as socially desirable (Raghubir & Menon, 1996). This is
termed social desirability bias. Interestingly, with over 50% of students readily admitting to
illegal music downloads, there is the indication of a large degree of social acceptance for the
behavior (i.e., it may not be deemed to be socially undesirable by a large segment of the student
population). Further, we can assume that if there were no legal risk associated with admitting to
the behavior, the percentage of those admitting to the behavior would be even higher. The social
desirability bias for illegal downloading among college students is, therefore, surprisingly low.
High degrees of risk-taking may be, in part, an outcome of the penchant for college-aged
students to have high degrees of optimistic bias. Individuals, in general, are challenged to
5
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
compare their individual risk with the risk to others (Weinstein, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1987).
According to Chapin (2000), “individuals believe they are less vulnerable to risks than others”
(p. 52). Assessment of risk is essentially egocentric. Optimistic bias is especially pronounced
among youth. This is in large part because risk perception is related to a combination of
cognitive development and collected experiences (Weinstein, 1989). College-aged students are
particularly limited in their collected experiences as opposed to older comparison groups. Youthoriented optimistic bias was demonstrated in a study of urban minority at-risk students, which
found that an overwhelming majority (89%) felt a degree of optimistic bias toward their risk of
contracting HIV infection despite clear evidence to the contrary (Chapin, 2000). Optimistic bias
increases “third-person perception.” With specific regard to communications, third-person
perception means that people believe communications have a greater affect on others than on
themselves (Davidson, 1983).
Another factor related to illegal downloading by college students is anti-industry bias.
Research has shown that, when there is a perceived inequitable relationship between the music
copyright holder and the individual, negative attitudes toward music piracy tend to soften
(Kwong & Lee, 2002). Perceptions of an inequitable relationship regarding music ownership
result in both anti-industry feelings, against music companies, and anti-artist feelings. Lack of
exposure to the corporate world and media-driven images of opulent music star lifestyles may be
reinforcing lax attitudes toward music piracy among college students. Importantly, they may
also be allaying any feelings of guilt.
The specific psychology of college-aged students offers a mix of high degrees of risktaking and sensation seeking, fueled by optimistic bias, and reinforced by anti-industry/anti-artist
bias. This mélange reinforces their desires to download illegally and minimizes moral dilemmas.
6
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Gopal, Sanders, Battacharjee, Agrawal & Wagner (2004) found that swapping online music had
a negative correlation to ethical and moral dispositions.
Research on File Sharing of Motion Pictures
A recent study on file sharing of motion pictures maps out six specific user utilities
(Hennig-Thurau, Henning & Sattler, 2007). Given the similarities of illegal music downloading
and illegal movie file sharing behavior, these utilities may be relevant to our study. The six
specific utilities observed for movie piracy were: 1) Transaction Utility (the ability to get a
“better deal”); 2) Mobility Utility (the ability to store on mobile devices, like iPods); 3) Storage
Utility (not having to acquire a physical copy); 4) Anti-industry Utility (related to anti-industry
bias, generated by perceptions of greedy movie corporations); 5) Social Utility (the ability to
increase social connections and peer interactions via the illegal movie copies) and 6) Collection
Utility (the ability to collect a large amount of movies regardless of financial status). The study
found that two particular utilities—anti-industry utility and collection utility—significantly
enhanced users’ experiences of attaining pirated movies.
The study of Hennig-Thurau, et. al. (2007) found that there were also costs associated
with the attainment of pirated movies that could mitigate users’ levels of utility. Of the four
specific costs identified, three were perceptual costs. In other words, the costs were based on the
subjective perceptions of risk or guilt by the downloader at the time of the download. These
costs were: 1) Technical Costs (e.g., perceived risk of computer viruses or bad files); 2) Legal
Costs (e.g., perceived risk of fines or penalties); and 3) Moral Costs (e.g., concerns about
stealing). As seen in earlier research on optimistic bias, if the optimistic bias is high, technical
and legal costs would likely be perceived to be relatively low. As seen in previous research on
social desirability bias, if social acceptance of illegal movie file sharing is high, then moral costs
7
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
would also be perceived to be quite low. The one true or hard cost was the search cost (i.e., the
actual time spent searching for the illegal copy).
The utilities outlined for digital movie piracy may provide a strong construct for the study
of digital music piracy. Specifically, we will look at the utilities and benefits of digital music
piracy for users to see if they are the same or similar to those of digital movie piracy. We also
have particular interest in whether the costs that act as a potential brake on the illegal behavior
are real or perceptual at the time of the actual download. Understanding utilities, benefits, and
perceived costs will help us better understand what kinds of messaging can impact them most
directly.
Previous Music Downloading Research
Rochelandet & Le Guel (2005) found that music downloaders prefer illegal copies to
legal copies when they offer greater utility. They found that perceptions of utility were
influenced by three factors: 1) the ability to substitute one for another; 2) the costs associated
with the legal copy; and 3) the net utility of buying the original (i.e., the benefits minus the
purchase costs). Chiou, Huang & Lee (2005) found that illegal downloading behavior was a
function of a user’s satisfaction in relation to their perceptions of prosecution risk and overall
magnitude of consequence. Their perception of the social consensus was equally important.
These studies support the need to build a clear, comprehensive model to explain the utilities,
benefits, and costs of music piracy to downloaders.
Sinha & Mandel (2008) showed that definitions of benefits and costs are not so clear-cut
when related to illegal behavior. They found that negative consequences of digital music piracy
may increase the behavior among some downloaders as well as decrease it among others. They
note that a person’s optimum stimulation level (OSL) determines their piracy potential (Raju,
1980): the higher the OSL, the higher the willingness to take risks to achieve the desired
8
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
sensations (Zucherman, 1979). Because college students have a heightened desire for sensation
seeking, and therefore high OSL, increasing perceived costs could have a boomerang effect.
Specifically, increasing the perception of risk could create a heightened sense of sensation.
These results are consistent with findings regarding the National Youth Anti-drug Media
Campaign. The campaign’s primary purpose was to prevent the initiation of drug use by 9-18
year olds. After spending almost $1 billion over six years, the results were disappointing. The
campaign “may have been showing unintended boomerang effects on its youth audience, such
that, over time, those who had greater exposure to campaign messages were more likely to
demonstrate pro-drug outcomes….” (Jacobsohn, 2007, p.1).
The literature paints a picture of college students who are willing to take risks by using
illegal music downloads to gain specific utilities and gratifications. Students judge the specific
amount of risk by weighing the level of gratification versus specific perceived costs. Further,
attitudes such as Anti-musician/Anti-music industry bias and feelings of optimistic bias may
increase the possibility of the behavior by either enhancing the gratification or lowering the
perceived costs. Previous literature provide a general framework of music piracy behaviors, but
it needs more empirical research to build a well-defined practical model that helps the industry
understand the issue and develop effective strategies to stop digital music piracy. As such, the
following section includes hypotheses and research questions designed to be exploratory on the
relationship between variables.
Hypotheses and Research Questions
Digital music piracy is commonplace on college campuses (Richmond School of Law,
2006). Social Cognitive Theory suggests that positive outcomes and observations motivate
repeated behavior (Bandura, 1977). Colleges are unique environments that combine tightknit peer social groups, the psychology of youth, and economic factors of low disposable
9
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
income. Any or all of these factors could be enhancing the perception of positive outcomes
of music piracy for college students that lead to repeated music piracy. Our previous
qualitative study (-------------, 2009) indicated specifically that Economic Utility, Collection
Utility, and Social Utility were primary motivations. This leads us to ask:
RQ1: What are specific motivations for digital music piracy among college students?
Existing research has indicated that a number of attitudes exist among youth, in
general, and in specific relation to illegal music downloading that have the potential to
reinforce illegal music downloading behavior. Examples are Optimistic Bias (Weinstein,
1980, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1989; Chapin 2000), Anti-musician/Anti-music Industry Bias
(Kwong & Lee, 2002). Further, our previous qualitative research indicated that peer group
social acceptance of the behavior was also a reinforcement. This leads us to hypothesize
that:
H1: There is a statistical relationship between specific reinforcements and motivations for
digital music piracy.
Existing research on both digital music and movie piracy indicate that there are
specific costs associated with the behavior (Hennig-Thurau, Henning & Sattler, 2007;
Rochelandet & Le Guel, 2005). Our previous qualitative research indicated that Technical
Cost and Legal Cost had the potential to act as reverse reinforcements on the behavior. This
leads us to hypothesize that:
H2: There is a statistical relationship between specific perceived costs and motivations for
digital music piracy.
Uses and Gratifications Theory indicates that people use specific media for specific
gratifications (Blumler & Katz, 1974). Different motivations, therefore, should have
10
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
different levels of importance for generating specific gratifications that lead to the
behavior. This leads us to hypothesize that:
H3: Different motivations to download music illegally could predict the extent to which the
gratification of digital music piracy is reached.
Method
Samples
The convenience samples of the study included two-hundred and four college
students who voluntarily participated in an anonymous survey in February 2009. The
majority of the survey participants were recruited from four undergraduate classes and
one graduate class in a large university on the east coast of the United States. The
respondents were asked to fill out a questionnaire that took approximately 15 minutes to
complete. The survey used a filter question, “How often do you download music using an
illegal program?” to select qualified samples. Answers to the question were measured on a
five-point scale ranging from “Never,” “Rarely,” “Sometime,” “Often,” to “Always.”
Responses to the question with “Never” were excluded for analysis. In the end, data of 153
samples were analyzed in the study. Table 1 provides demographic profile of the samples.
Convenience sampling, as used in this study, depends on readily accessible
participants to provide exploratory findings. Generally, data collected from nonprobability sampling are problematic because they are short of representations of the large
populations. However, collecting available data to explore hidden relationships among
variables has been widely acceptable in social science research (Baxter and Babbie, 2004).
A similar sampling method was used in previous studies including Chiou, Huang & Lee
(2005) and LaRose, Rai, Lange, Love, and Wu (2005). The sampling size of the current study
is thought to be adequate for the purpose of multivariate analysis (Garson, 2009).
11
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
[Table 1 About Here]
Questionnaire
The survey questionnaire included 59 questions developed with reference to the
studies of Hennig-Thurau, Henning & Sattler (2007), Rochelandet & Le Guel (2005), and the
authors’ previous qualitative study on this subject (--------------, 09). The cover letter and
questionnaire were pre-tested in a small focus group including four undergraduate
students.
Definitions of variables

Motivations for digital music piracy: Different reasons why respondents took the
risk and were engaged in the illegal music downlading.

Reinforcements: Internal and external perceptions that help illegal downloaders to
justify their motivation to download music illegally.

Perceived costs: Both tangible and intangible costs that downloaders associate with
illegal music downloading.

Gratification of digital music piracy: Feelings of personal satisfaction and
accomplishment after downloading music illegally.
Operations of variables
Multiple regression analyses were conducted to test three hypotheses. Motivations
for Digital Music Piracy was the dependent variable measured in H1 and H2. The variable
included a group of nine questions measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from
“strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “neutral,” “agree,” “strongly agree.” There were two
separate independent variables, Reinforcements and Perceived Costs, for the measurement
of H1 and H2. Reinforcements included responses to 17 questions that were factor
12
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
analyzed. The questions were designed according to the qualitative research previously
conducted by the authors and the research of Hennig-Thurau, Henning & Sattler (2007),
Rochelandet & Le Guel (2005).
To measure H3, responses to the nine questions were reduced into three factors,
Collection Utility, Economic Utility, and Social Utility. (Details of the three factors are
explained in the section of Results.) The dependent variable of H3 was a composite
variable of feeling a sense of reward and accomplishment from digital music piracy (r=.34;
p< .001).
Results
RQ1: What are specific motivations for digital music piracy among college students?
A principal component factor analysis with Varimax rotations was conducted to
identify different motivations for digital music piracy among college students. Table 2
shows that nine variables submitted to the factor analysis yielded three main motivations,
Economic utility (Eigenvalues= 3.49; Percent of variance= 38.82), Collection utility
(Eigenvalues= 1.42; Percent of variance= 15.79), and Social utility (Eigenvalues= 1.14;
Percent of variance= 12.66). Economic utility and collection utility, as motivations of digital
music piracy, are unsurprising because they are consistent with previous findings (HennigThurau, Henning & Sattler, 2007). Social Utility as the third motivation is a crucial finding. It
adds a new dimension to the study of motivations for digital music piracy. It opens up the
possibility that, for college students, the perceptions of positive or negative outcomes, as
theorized by Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), may be constructed by the opinions of peers as
well as personal experience and observation of the experiences of others. The three factors
as motivations confirmed the conceptual model proposed in the earlier qualitative study.
[Table 2 About Here]
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Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
H1: There is a statistical relationship between specific reinforcements and motivations for
digital music piracy.
Before testing H1, we conducted a factor analysis and identified four underlying
commonalities among fifteen variables considered to be reinforcements to the motivation
for digital music piracy (see Table 3). The four underlying commonalities were Moral
Conscience (Eigenvalues= 3.60; Percent of variance= 23.98), Anti-musician/Anti-music
Industry (Eigenvalues= 1.62; Percent of variance= 10.79), Social Acceptance (Eigenvalues=
1.53; Percent of variance= 10.23), and Optimistic Bias (Eigenvalues= 1.21; Percent of
variance= 8.06).
[Table 3 About Here]
Moral Conscience represents an internally driven value that might deter students
from engaging in digital music piracy. There was a subconscious sentiment of Antimusician/Anti-music Industry bias among students. Respondents did not really believe
that illegal music downloading would hurt music artists and/or the music industry. Our
previous qualitative findings indicated this is because they perceived the industry and most
recoding artists to be very wealthy, making them biased against the industry/artists where
money matters were concerned, but not in general (-----------, 2009). Social Acceptance
represents an externally driven perception. Illegal music downloading might be attributed
to perceived peer behavior. In other words, respondents thought everyone else was doing
it, so it was okay for them to do. Optimistic bias provides the notion that respondents
continued to download music because they believed they were luckier, or smarter, than
those people who got caught.
A multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the first hypothesis (See Table
4). The dependent variable, Motivation to Engage In Digital Music Piracy, was a composite
14
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
variable from the factors of Economic Utility, Collection Utility, and Social Utility. The
independent variables were the four reinforcements including Moral Conscience, Anti
Musicians/Anti-music Industry, Social Acceptance, and Optimistic Bias (R= .51, R-Square= .26,
d.f.= 4, F= 11.58, p< 0.001). The results show that low value of moral conscience led to a
stronger motivation to download music illegally (Beta= -0.27; t= -3.63; p< .001). Greater
acceptance of music piracy as a social norm (Beta= 0.24; t= 3.26; p= .001), higher levels of
optimistic bias (Beta= 0.19; t= 2.47; p< .05), and sentiments against the music industry
(Beta= 0.30; t= 3.99; p< .001), also led to stronger motivations to illegally download music.
H1 was supported since all four independent variables yielded significant results.
[Table 4 About Here]
H2: There is a statistical relationship between specific perceived costs and motivations for
digital music piracy.
The independent variables were three different types of perceived costs: Search
Cost, Technical Cost, and Legal Cost. Search Cost was a single-question variable. The
survey provided the statement, “The process of obtaining music illegally is easier than the
legal process.” The responses were measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from
strongly disagree to strongly agree. Technical cost was an aggregated variable combined
from two different variables, “fear of virus” and “fear of losing my Internet privileges” deter
me from using illegal music downloading programs (r= .40; p< .001). Legal cost was a
single factor generated from six variables related to legal issues that deter respondents
from using illegal music downloading (Eigenvalues= 2.89; Percent of variance= 48.08;
Alpha= .82; Mean= 3.13). These six variables represented both fear of, and knowledge of,
legal cost. The variables included 1) “news stories about the consequences,” 2) “personal
stories told by peers about the consequences,” 3) “legal actions taken by colleges and
15
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
authorities,” 4) “fear of large monetary fines,” 5) “fear of University punishment,” and 6)
“think of negative implications.”
Testing H2 (See Table 5), we conducted a multiple regression analysis and
measured if the Search, Technical, and Legal costs could explain the dependent variable,
Motivation to Engage In Digital Music Piracy (R= .28, R-Square= .08, d.f.= 140, F= 4.078, p<
.01). The results show that Search (Beta= 0.18; t= 2.11; p< .05) and Technical Costs (Beta=
0.19; t= 2.09; p< .05) significantly predicted the motivation to illegally download music, but
Legal Cost did not reach the statistical significance (Beta= -0.16; t= -1.8; p= .07). This result
regarding Legal cost may be consistent with the earlier indications of optimistic bias.
Because college students observed that few people were ever fined for illegal downloads, it
might not be seen as a significant cost. Since two of three independent variables could
significantly explain the digital music piracy, H2 was mostly supported.
[Table 5 About Here]
H3: Different motivations to download music illegally could predict extent to which the
gratification of digital music piracy is reached.
A multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis. Gratifications,
as the dependent variable, represented the feelings of reward and accomplished actions of
digital music piracy. Table 6 shows that the three main motivations, Collection Utility,
Economic Utility, and Social Utility positively and significantly predicted the gratifications
of digital music piracy (R= .46, R-Square= .22 d.f.= 141, F= 12.97; p < .001). The higher the
degree of motivation for Economic (Beta= 0.15; t= 2.04; p< .05), Collection (Beta= 0.30; t=
4.0; p< .001), and Social Utility (Beta= 0.32; t= 4.33; p< .001), the greater extent to which
gratification was reached. Among the three motivations, Social Utility contributed the
highest level of gratifications; Collection Utility, the second, closely followed by Economic
16
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Utility, according to the individual beta weight that each motivation received in the
equation. Therefore, H3 was supported.
[Table 6 About Here]
Discussion
The quantitative results confirmed the model generated by our previous qualitative
analysis. Specifically, it confirmed that Economic, Collection, and Social Utilities all motivate
digital music piracy. In some aspects, this was unsurprising. The Economic and Collection
Utilities of digital piracy are somewhat obvious, and have been revealed in previous studies
of both movie and music piracy (Hennig-Thurau, Henning & Sattler, 2007; Rochelandet & Le
Guel, 2005). The importance of Social Utility was an important new finding, however. This
finding may support music piracy as an aspect of social network theory (Kadushin, 2003),
which underscores the importance of social connections and relationships in regard to
individual actions. The importance of social networks, in part, explains the spectacular rise
of music sharing and social networking websites, such as Facebook, on college campuses.
While our previous qualitative results led us to believe that Social Utility was an
important motivator, our quantitative results showed that it contributed more to the level
of gratification than Economic Utility. Going into the research, our hunch was that
Economic Utility would be dominant, followed by the other two. We felt it only natural to
assume that the free nature of the product was by far the most important motivator. The
fact that Social Utility was the most important motivation for illegal downloading was a big
surprise. Collection Utility as the second most important motivation, ahead of Economic
Utility, was also a surprise.
When looking at the specific factors that reinforced the motivations to download, we
found that previously documented anti-musician/anti-music industry feelings and feelings
17
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
of optimistic bias were clearly present (Weinstein, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1989; Chapin,
2000; Davidson, 1983; Kwong & Lee, 2002). Again, the most significant findings were
related to the influence of social aspects. Higher levels of social acceptance led to stronger
motivations to illegally download. Another reinforcement, moral conscience, gave a
previously researched result: when moral conscience was low, desire to illegally download
is high (Gopal, Sanders, Battecharjee, Agrawal & Wagner, 2004). With an understanding of
the importance of social acceptance, however, we can look at this result in a different way.
Rather than being an absolute measure of moral conscience (i.e., right versus wrong), if we
look at this through the social lens, we can see it more as a measure of what is deemed
socially acceptable or unacceptable. We see this clearly in respondents’ reactions to
statements to survey questions such as: “I never consider illegally downloading music as
stealing,” and “Downloading music illegally doesn’t bother me at all.” In an atmosphere of
strong peer social acceptance of illegal music downloading behavior, positive answers to
statements like these were probably not seen by college students as morally worrisome in
any discernable way. Indeed, morality is in the eye of the beholder, or the beholder’s social
group.
More surprises awaited us in the analysis of cost factors that had the potential to act
as brakes—or reverse reinforcements—to the illegal behavior. Again, some results were
expected based on previous research. Search costs and technical costs were inversely
related to the motivations. Surprisingly, legal costs were not related at all. Research on
illegal music file sharing by Hennig-Thurau, Henning & Sattler (2007) had led us to believe that
legal costs would be positively correlated. The observed lack of positive correlation can possibly
be explained by our previous qualitative research findings (--------, 09). In personal and group
interviews, the legal cost for downloading using on-campus servers was seen as extremely high.
18
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Most respondents had a friend, or had heard of someone, who had been caught and/or fined. Off
campus, in the “real world,” however, respondents indicated that their fear of being caught was
infinitesimally small. With such a low perceived possibility of being caught, it is reasonable to
theorize that the optimistic bias of college kids regarding legal costs grew to such an extent that
legal costs no longer had the potential to act as a brake on illegal behavior. This observation of
the ineffectiveness of legal strategies may explain why the Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA), after initiating over 35,000 lawsuits since 2002, indicated in December 2008
that it would significantly decrease new lawsuits in general and stop suing individual for
unauthorized music sharing. Along similar lines, Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, recently called for
the music industry to drop digital rights management (DRM) software, which prevents people
from sharing the music they legally download.
Our findings are summarized in a revised, quantitatively based cognitive map (Diagram
2).
[Diagram 2 About Here]
Implications
The findings of this study have strong implications for the music industry and how they
fight the problem of college music piracy. One key implication is that the industry should not
only be developing strategies to fight individual downloaders, as a focus on individual lawsuits
does. Rather, they should perceive the problem as fundamentally social. This indicates that
grass roots efforts within colleges that focus on times when students are assembled either
physically or in social networks could prove effective. In terms of broader communication,
messages with the objective of overturning peer group social acceptance by showing the cost of
the behavior on the peer group, its image or society at large might be more effective than focus
on individual risks. Another key implication is that, in addition to social strategies, any program,
19
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
legal approach or advertising campaign aiming to increase the perception of personal risk needs
to reframe the perception of risk substantially. Aside from using on-campus servers, the
perception of personal risk to college students is, today, very small. A swift and drastic shift in
perception would be important not just on an individual basis, but because it could create a social
tipping point among college peers. A key to combining personal and social costs might be to
focus on things related to music piracy that could cause extreme personal embarrassment within
the insular social peer networks of college campuses.
Limitations
The study took place on the campus of a large, private eastern university. Chiou,
Huang & Lee’s (2005) research implies that behavior related to music piracy may vary across
different college campuses. Differences in environmental and social factors mean that solutions
that work on one campus may not work on others. More studies of a similar nature would
need to be done in other regions and at different sized universities with different socioeconomic make-ups.
Future Research
This is the second stage of a three-stage research study. The goal of the third stage will be
to use the information from the first two stages to improve the effectiveness of communications
programs intended to convince college students to stop downloading illegally. To date, it is
unclear whether communications to college students have had any effect in modifying their
behavior. We will test a variety of new communications approaches versus existing approaches
experimentally.
Another area for further study would be to study the concept of embarrassment within
college peer networks to determine how some social behaviors can be transformed from
acceptable to embarrassing. Finally, our qualitative results indicated that a vast majority of
20
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
college students considered themselves “light downloaders,” regardless of how many illegal
songs they had downloaded. Students who downloaded over 100 songs a year illegally believed
they didn’t download enough to be a problem. This was not borne out in the quantitative results,
but is worth further investigation because finding ways to change such a perception, if it exists,
could help decrease digital music piracy.
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25
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Diagram 1: Cognitive Map of Digital Music Piracy
Reinforcements
Motivations
Perceived Costs
26
Gratifications of
Digital
Music
Piracy
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Table 1
Demographic Background of Respondents
Age
Frequency
27
39
26
36
14
8
150
Percent
18
26
17
24
9
5
100
Female
Male
117
32
149
79
22
101
White/Caucasian
Black/African American
Asian/Pacific Islander
Hispanic/Latino
Other
Total
118
3
15
9
5
150
79
2
10
6
3
100
87
59
146
60
40
100
$0-40
$41-80
$81-120
$121-160
$161-200
$201-240
$241+
80
29
20
5
3
3
5
145
55
20
14
3
2
2
3
100
Freshman
Sophomore
Junior
Senior
Graduate
44
31
28
36
10
149
30
21
19
24
7
100
18
19
20
21
22
23 or older
Total
Sex
Total
Race
Residence
On-Campus
Off-Campus
Total
Income (Weekly)
Total
Year in College
Total
27
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Table 2
Motivations for Digital Music Piracy
F1: Economic Utility (Alpha= .85; Mean= 4.06)
Illegally downloading music saves money.
I am not making enough money to buy music.
Paying for music is too expensive.
F2: Collection Utility (Alpha= .70; Mean= 3.64)
I can find any song and download it online.
I download music with illegal program because I feel
like everything I want is right at my fingertips.
F3: Social Utility (Alpha= .64; Mean= 3.53)
Downloading is all about sharing songs with friends.
It is enjoyable to see what other people have in their collection…
F1
0.72
0.88
0.91
F2
0.33
0.17
0.14
F3
0.15
0.02
0.08
0.14
0.13
0.83
0.82
0.13
0.07
0.00
0.06
0.21
0.00
0.77
0.87
Eigenvalues
Variance explained (%)
3.49
38.82
1.42
15.79
1.14
12.66
Table 3
Factors of Reinforcement to Motivate Digital Music Piracy
F1: Moral Conscience (Alpha= .77; Mean=2.87)
I don't think twice when illegally downloading music (r).
Downloading music illegally does not bother me at all (r).
I never consider illegally music downloading as stealing (r).
I believe there is a chance that I will get caught when I illegally download
music.
F2: Anti-musicians/music industry (Alpha= .63; Mean=2.81)
There are bigger issues record companies and musicians should worry
about
other than illegal music downloading.
Illegal music downloading hurts artist and others who work in the music
industry.
Musicians and record companies make so much money that downloading
music illegally cannot hurt them (r).
F3: Social Acceptance (Alpha= .50; Mean=2.89)
Downloading music illegally is acceptable because it is unlike other more
risky illegal behaviors that might physically harm people.
I download music illegally because everybody does it.
F4: Optimistic Bias (Alpha= .53; Mean=2.92)
I try to use illegal programs that are more difficult to track when illegally
download music.
I think I am luckier than other downloaders who get caught.
Eigenvalues
Variance explained (%)
28
F1
0.89
0.87
0.57
F2
-.10
-.13
-.39
F3
0.92
-.21
-.35
F4
0.16
0.6
0.25
0.54
0.01
0.14
-.07
-.19
0.69
0.08
0.13
-.13
0.66
-.04
-.07
-.16
0.75
.05
-.02
0.08
-0.03
0.30
-.16
0.73
0.77
-.06
0.16
0.11
-0.03
0.13
-0.09
-.02
0.18
0.80
0.77
3.60
23.98
1.62
10.79
1.53
10.23
1.21
8.06
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Table 4
Multiple Regression Analysis of Reinforcements on Motivations of Digital Music Piracy
Reinforcements
Moral Conscience
Anti Musicians
Social Acceptance
Optimistic Bias
B
-0.47
0.52
0.42
0.32
ß
-0.27
0.30
0.24
0.19
t
-3.63
3.99
3.26
2.47
Sig.
< 0.001
< 0.001
0.001
<.05
R = .51, R-Square = .26, d.f. = .4, F = 11.58, p < 0.001
Table 5
Multiple Regression Analysis of Perceived Costs on Motivations of Digital Music Piracy
Perceived Costs
Search Cost
Legal Cost
Technical Cost
B
0.28
-0.28
0.17
ß
0.18
-0.16
0.19
t
2.11
-1.80
2.09
Sig.
< .05
0.07
< .05
R = .28, R-Square = .08, d.f. = 140, F = 4.078, p < .01
Table 6
Multiple Regression Analysis of Motivations on Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy
Motivations
Collection
Economic
Social
B
0.50
0.25
0.54
R = .46, R-Square = .22 d.f. = 141, F = 12.97 p < .001
29
ß
0.30
0.15
0.32
t
4.00
2.04
4.33
Sig.
< 0.001
< .05
< 0.001
Motivations for Gratifications of Digital Music Piracy Among College Students
Diagram 2: Summarized Findings of Digital Music Piracy
Reinforcements




Moral Conscience
Anti musicians
Social Acceptance
Optimistic Bias
(-)**
(+)**
(+)**
(+)**
Motivations



Social
(+)**
Collection (+)**
Economic (+)*
Perceived Costs



Search
(+) *
Legal
(-) (ns)
Technical (+) *
* P< .05
** P< .001
A “+” sign represents a positive relationship between the two variables.
A “-“ sign represents an inverse relationship between the two variables.
“NS” means that there is no relationship between the two variables.
30
Gratifications of
Digital Music
Piracy
 Personal
satisfaction
• Accomplishment