Digital piracy, the illegal copying or downloading of copyrighted digital products without approval from the copyright holders, has brought great economic loss to the software and digital media industries. Previous studies using moral developmental theory have not found consistent relationships between moral judgment and attitudes towards digital piracy. While some researchers have developed individual test items to assess relationships between moral judgment and attitudes toward digital piracy, others have relied on the Defining Issues Test (DIT). However, in that the DIT represents a general measure of moral judgment based on broad social issues, it, too, may not adequately assess an individual’s reasoning specific to issues regarding digital piracy. The purpose of this study was to create a reliable instrument (i.e., DP-DIT) modeled after the DIT designed to assess moral judgment regarding digital piracy as well as to examine and compare the ability of both DP-DIT and DIT2-short to predict attitudes, intentions and behaviors regarding digital piracy of college students. Results indicated the reliability of both the DIT2-short and the DP-DIT were discounted, quite likely due to the small number of stories contained in each. DP-DIT appeared to have greater predictive ability due to its advantage in predicting attitudes toward digital piracy, especially using DP-DIT MNS. However, even though here DP-DIT MNS was the strongest predictor of attitudes toward digital piracy, it explained a limited amount of variance. Further research to improve reliability and validity of DP-DIT is warranted.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

Infringement in fields of Intellectual Property Rights is a global problem causing repeated and sustained attention at national and international levels. A number of different organizations and commissions are constantly control and counteract the growth of these infringements, but despite the taken measures counterfeit and piracy goods continue to be manufactured and sold around the world. The Russian Federation (RF) is a country that has close commercial ties with many foreign states, including Sweden. However the RF is one of the countries, included on the Special 301 Priority Watch List due to the continuing and large - scale of Property Rights and Intellectual Property Rights violations. In this connection, a study was conducted with the participation of collaborating Swedish - Russian enterprises, whose activities could be subjected to counterfeiting and IP piracy. The aim of the study is to determine how collaborating Swedish – Russian enterprises with branches in the Russian Federation perceive the situation in the country and assess the activities of Russian institutions that play an important role in controlling and combating violations against counterfeiting and IP piracy. Moreover the aim includes identifying the most vulnerable class of actors in the general mechanism of counterfeiting and IP piracy. The research based on elements of the New Institutional Economics Theory and conducted by using a combination of a literature review and semi- structured interview with representatives of Swedish - Russian enterprises. The study found that organizations are the most vulnerable class of actors in general mechanism of counterfeiting and IP piracy. International firms and companies are in a more difficult situation because they provide own activities simultaneously in several legal and political systems. Representatives of interviewed companies argue that activities of analyzed Russian institutions are insufficiently effective and the state should take a set of measures so the foreign collaborative organizations could feel confident in territory of the RF and Russian market would become more attractive for foreign business.

The Czech theatrical market faces a major digital piracy problem. The availability of illegitimate digital distribution channels represents a challenge for managers, especially when original movies are uploaded to the Internet before or during their theatrical release. The crucial managerial task is to solve the problems of losses caused by piracy, and to find a balance between antipiracy investment and the maximal benefits it brings. Therefore, to maximize stakeholder utility, management decision-making needs to be complemented and supported. Firstly, the research investigates the basis of digital piracy, discusses the effects it causes, focuses on relevant stakeholders. The thesis deals with knowledge management and system dynamics using its principles and approaches and proposes a model supporting strategic management decision-making. The created knowledge-based computational model simulates the market's development of the Czech theatrical industry related to digital film piracy in the following scenarios: current market settings, industry-based administration, government-based administration and a mixture of the last two; the results of the different scenarios are discussed, evaluated and compared. The findings indicate that with the current settings in the Czech theatrical industry, the losses caused by digital piracy keep increasing linearly. Industry-based administration implies that the losses level off with a negligible yearly increase and the government-based solution reduces the losses more than the industrial administration. Nevertheless, the results show minor differences in total box office revenues, while differences in antipiracy costs are vast. Therefore, the predictive experiment based on the current market environment represents the most efficient version of the experiments. Even though losses are, the highest, real box office revenues are only a little different. Simply put, a moderate increase in box office revenues paid for by massive investments into antipiracy seems inefficient.

During the so-called ‘golden age’ of piracy that occurred in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, several thousands of men and a handful of women sailed aboard pirate ships. The narrative, operational techniques, and economic repercussions of the waves of piracy that threatened maritime trade during the ‘golden age’ have fascinated researchers, and so too has the social history of the people involved. Traditionally, the historiography of the social history of pirates has portrayed them as democratic and highly egalitarian bandits, divided their spoil fairly amongst their number, offered compensation for comrades injured in battle, and appointed their own officers by popular vote. They have been presented in contrast to the legitimate societies of Europe and America, and as revolutionaries, eschewing the unfair and harsh practices prevalent in legitimate maritime employment. This study, however, argues that the ‘revolutionary’ model of ‘golden age’ pirates is not an accurate reflection of reality. By using the ‘articles’ or shipboard rules created by pirates, this thesis explores the questions of pirates’ hierarchy, economic practices, social control, and systems of justice, and contextualises the pirates’ society within legitimate society to show that pirates were not as egalitarian or democratic as they have been portrayed, and that virtually all of their social practices were based heavily on, or copied directly from, their experiences in legitimate society, on land and at sea. In doing so, this thesis argues that far from being social revolutionaries, pirates sought to improve their own status, within the pre-existing social framework of legitimate society.

The rise of new digital technologies and the Internet has given more people than ever before the ability to copy and share music and video. Even as Japan has adopted stronger copyright protections, the number of Japanese peer-to-peer file sharing network users has multiplied. Though the distribution of copyrighted material online has long been illegal and, as of 2010, the download of copyrighted material is now a criminal act, illegal file sharing continues apace, with the majority of people active on Japan’s most popular file sharing programs remaining unaffected by the new legislation. Clearly the law alone does not work to constrain file sharing behavior in Japan and, in fact, it is not the only way Japan strives to enforce copyright law on the Internet. What strategies are industries and government taking to curb illegal file sharing and are these strategies effective? How is unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing cast into an act both immoral and worthy of criminal prosecution? Of particular interest are the evolution and growth of architectural and social constraints on online behavior alongside these legal constraints. / text

The title of this diploma thesis: Copyright protection of computer programs The general purpose of this thesis is to describe the most important aspects of the legal protection of computer programs, particularly the aspects of copyright protection. In this thesis I describe the form in which a computer program is protected, the activities that are permitted by law in relation to a computer program and what activities constitute an unauthorised intereference with author's rights. In addition to the copyright regime I also briefly described patent protection of computer programs, since it recently was subject to heated discussions in Europe and we can anticipate further development in this matter in the future, especially with regard to the decision-making practice of the European Patent Office and possible legislative establishment of patent protection of software at EU level. I have analyzed the above mentioned aspects under the Czech law (in close relation to the law of EU) but also under the law of the USA. Therefore, another aim of this thesis was to compare the legal protection of software in the USA and in the Czech Republic (EU respectively). Finally, this thesis also describes the issue called "software piracy", i.e. illegal distribution and use of computer programs. More specifically, I...

This paper aims to follow the development of radio broadcasting piracy. We focused on two main and very different media landscapes - the United Kingdom and the United States of America. In the beginning, the concept of piracy differed locally. The United Kingdom's pirates were people who received radio broadcasting of the British Broadcasting Company without paying an annual license for listening. In the media landscape of America, piracy was connected with the broadcasting of their own signal. US pirates were broadcasters who caused an interference with any other licensed station. This concept of piracy developed in British media landscape too. Later, it was primarily associated with offshore broadcasters who anchored their floating studios in international waters. This kind of radio piracy was the most popular in the United Kingdom because of a radio broadcasting monopoly of the BBC. Piracy in the United States of America is associated with efforts of amateur radio experimenters. When their signals strengthened, all their activities became illegal. In both cases, piracy was a strong stimulus for a change. In the United Kingdom, the BBC formed new channels with diverse content and in the United Stated of America the position of micro- broadcasters has been strengthened.

This thesis aims to offer a comprehensive analysis of peer-to-peer-based file-sharing by focusing on the discourses about use, agency and motivation involved, and how they interrelate with the infrastructural properties of file-sharing. Peer-to-peer-based file-sharing is here defined as the unrestricted duplication of digitised media content between autonomous end-nodes on the Internet. It has become an extremely popular pastime, largely involving music, film, games and other media which is copied without the permission of the copyright holders. Due to its illegality, the popular understanding of the phenomenon tends to overstate its conflictual elements, framing it within a legalistic 'copyfight'. This is most markedly manifested in the dichotomised image of file-sharers as 'pirates' allegedly opposed to the entertainment industry. The thesis is an attempt to counter this dichotomy by using a more heterodox synthesis of perspectives, aiming to assimilate the phenomenon's complex intermingling of technological, infrastructural, economic and political factors. The geographic context of this study is Sweden, a country characterised by early broadband penetration and subsequently widespread unrestricted file-sharing, paralleled by a lively and well-informed public debate. This gives geographic specificity and further context to the file-sharers' own justificatory discourses, serving to highlight and problematise some principal assumptions about the phenomenon. The thesis thus serves as a geographically contained case study which will have analytical implications outside of its immediate local context, and as an inquiry into two aspects of file-sharer argumentation: the ontological understandings of digital technology and the notion of agency. These, in turn, relate to particular forms of sociality in late modernity. Although the agencies and normative forces involved are innumerable, controversies about agency tend to order themselves in a more comprehensive way, as they are appropriated discursively. The invocation to agency that is found in the justificatory discourses - both in the public debate and among individual respondents - thus allows for a more productive and critically attentive understanding of the phenomenon than previously

Each year billions of dollars are lost due to illegal downloading and copying of intellectual property. Individuals often perceive little or no consequences as a result of digital piracy. Research has shown that perceived consequences could be used to alter an individual's ethical intention to engage in digital piracy (INT). In addition subjective norm (SUN) may also contribute to INT. Therefore, the goal of this study was to determine the factors of perceived consequences and to assess their contribution, as well as the contribution of SUN, to INT. This predictive study developed a quantitative instrument to measure the contribution of the factors of perceived consequences and SUN on INT. In phase one of this study, an anonymous exploratory questionnaire was used to gather a list of perceived consequences. That list was combined with a list of perceived consequences found through an extensive review of the literature and a survey instrument was developed and used in phase two. After data cleaning, a total of 407 responses remained. Exploratory factor analysis incorporating principal component analysis (PCA) identified eight factors of INT: Personal Emotional Consequences (PEC), Freedom Consequences (FRC), Minor Consequences (MIC), Personal Freedom Consequences (PFC), Personal Moral Consequences (PMC), Network Access Consequences (NAC), Self Worth Consequences (SWC), and Industry Financial Consequences (IFC). A model was developed using Ordinal Logistic Regression to determine the contribution of the eight factors of perceived consequences and SUN on INT. PEC, PMC, and IFC as well as SUN were found to be significant contributors to INT. The Mann-Whitney U test determined that INT was the only factor that showed a significant difference for males. Additionally, gender was a significant contributor to FRC, MIC, PFC, PMC, SWC, and IFC. Each of these factors was more significant for females than males. The Kruskal-Wallis test determined that there were no significant differences in the factors of perceived consequences, SUN, and INT based on age or computer usage. Important contributions of this study include the identification of eight perceived consequence factors not previously known as well as the development of a unified predictive model, addressing all forms of digital piracy.