7. Psychological Thinking (Survey- Based)

In reality, consumers who download their free music or video online are a form of stealing.  Trading MP3s is just like stealing a CD from a store. Those MP3s are peoples’ intellectual property. They may not be tangible, but they can be stolen. This means that those consumers who download it can be fined, sued, and even go to jail. But why are these people still downloading it illegally?

Survey (40 people of aged 16 to 30 years old, students and working adults, adults with salary < $3k)

1. Do you support legal properties?

a) Yes. (6 people) (proceed to qns 2)

b) No. (34 people) (proceed to qns 3)

2. Why do you support legal properties?

a) I believe in abiding to law. (2 people)

b) I want good quality. (4 people)

c) It’s my family who influence me since young. (0)
3. Why do you not support legal properties?

a) It is expensive, I rather it be free. (30 people)

b) It is expensive, I rather pay less. (2 people)

c) It is my family who influence me since young. (2 people)


Analysis of Results

There are basically two types of mindset:

1) The money-sensitive (80%)

They are the ones that attempt to save at all costs; hoping that every cent saved can be used in other more worthwhile areas. To them, downloading illegal properties online is not a crime, but simply a trend that is spreading fast and worldwide. Moreover, being computer savvy, they believe that technology should bring them quality and free products. Thus, downloading illegal products is just an agreement that internet has brought them good accessibility and a wide availability of free products.

2) The quality-sensitive (20%)

Most of the people who support legal properties have the mindset that getting legal properties is the only and righteous way to abide to the law. Also, they believe that ONLY legal properties can provide one with the best quality product.

So, should we support piracy or be anti-piracy?


Reasons for Supporting Piracy

1) The 2008 British Music Rights survey showed that 80% of people in Britain wanted a legal P2P service. This was consistent with the results of earlier research conducted in the United States, upon which the  Open Music Model was based. In addition, the majority of file sharers in the survey preferred to get their music from "local sources" such as LAN connections, email, flash drives , sharing with other people they know personally.

2) The other most common method of file sharing was with P2P technologies. By 2007, P2P networks' popularity had grown so much that they used as much as 39% of the total volume of information exchanged over the internet. They prefer P2P sharing as it is not only cost saving but also extremely convenient to download with just a click online.

3) A survey released earlier this month by the University of Hertfordshire revealed that 59% of people aged 18 to 24, and 96% of those aged 14 to 17, do not pay their own monthly internet-access bill. Thus, they need not worry about the consequences of digital piracy. It is in fact their parents, who pay the bills, probably do.

4) From the survey on “Do you support piracy?”, some of them feel that it is more cost saving to download it online.

Reasons for Going Against Piracy

1) Based on the survey of “Do you support piracy”, many of them want to support the artists or have good quality music.

2) For many iPod Touch users, they are anti-pirates for they fully support music from iTunes and stated that it is the greatest music library in the world.