Music Piracy among College Students: An Examination of Low Self-Control, Techniques of Neutralization, and Rational Choice

Music piracy, which is often engaged in by college students, constitutes illegal behavior under the U.S. Copyright Act and, arguably, has a negative impact on the music industry. Based on prior research and a focus group conducted for this research, Gottfredson's low self-control and Sykes and Matza's techniques of neutralization along with the concept of drift, and rational choice theory have been proposed as appropriate theoretical models for exploring music piracy among college students. Based on a survey of 131 college students, it was found that slightly less than half were not willing to pay 99 cents to download a song. Ninety-four percent had illegally copied a CD and 86% had used a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) website to download music. Self-control was significantly related to whether one shared music on a P2P website in the previous six months. Those who engaged in P2P sharing were also significantly more likely than those who had not shared to support the three tested techniques of neutralization (denial of injury, denial of victim, and appeal to a higher loyalty). The implications of these results are discussed.