Digital Piracy Justification

Abstract

The literature has shown that digital piracy is more rampant in Asia and Asians are often found to have a more favorable attitude toward digital piracy in research. This study examines the attitude toward justifying digital piracy in light of the techniques of neutralization. A comparison is made between Asian international students and American students. The result shows Asian international students are significantly more likely to justify digital piracy, but their general morality is not significantly different from American students. This finding supports neutralization theory in that people do not need to change their moral belief to favor criminal behavior as long as they can apply the techniques of neutralization to justify it. Moreover, Asian Americans, among all racial groups in the American sample, are the only group that does not show significant difference in their digital piracy justification, compared to the Asian international students. Considering that Asian Americans and Asian international students rarely share the same social environment in their upbringing, this finding further suggests there is something about being Asian, rather than social factors, that endorses digital piracy justification.