Students: shoplifting CDs worse than downloading music via P2P
Stealing is wrong—or is it? The Internet adds nuances to that question that were once unthinkable. And, according to a newly published study in the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, students definitely think there’s a difference between stealing a CD from a store and pirating that same music online. This belief holds despite the threat of lawsuits and heavy fines from the recording industry, leading the study’s authors to believe that younger people are disconnected from the cost of media when they encounter it online.
The study was conducted by researchers at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and led by professor Talia Wingrove, who surveyed 172 undergraduate students in the midwestern US. The goal was to discover the difference in attitudes when it comes to shoplifting a CD, downloading an album from the Internet, or downloading and sharing the music with others. The researchers then ranked students’ reactions on scales of deterrence (risk of getting caught or punished by the law), morality (the activity being wrong or immoral), social influence (whether peers or parents would disapprove), respect for the industry, and obligation to obey the law.