The Effect of Demographic Factors on Attitudes toward Software Piracy

Abstract

Although few individuals will admit guilt, it is generally acknowledged that software piracy is rampant in most PC-using organizations today. From the vendor's perspective, software piracy means lost revenue and less incentive to develop new products. From the point of view of management in the PC-using organization, software piracy means the threat of costly litigation on the one hand, balanced against the reduced expense for additional software if illegal copies are used. It is the individual computer user, however, who ultimately makes the decision whether or not to attempt to copy protected programs. If it were possible to identify demographic factors which weigh in this decision, perhaps all parties involved could exercise more informed control over the copying of software.The goal of this research was to identify those factors which do or do not seem to be associated with a variety of possible attitudes toward software piracy. The factors include personal characteristics such as age, college major, ...