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What influences rampant movie piracy?
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This study develops a model of consumer complicity with counterfeit and pirated movies to better understand what motivates this type of illicit consumer behavior; specifically whether personal values (idealism, relativism), ethical concern, collectivism, hedonic shopping experience, and perceived quality are plausible predictors of this illicit consumption behavior. We selected movies as the product to examine since the industry has a high incidence of lost sales due to counterfeits in physical markets (e.g., DVDs) and piracy by way of digital formats (e.g., illegal downloading and/or video streaming). Using a web-based survey, over 1,500 consumers from Brazil, China, India, Russia, and the U.S. support the model and provide a means to identify a complicit consumer across country markets. The consumers’ lack of ethical concern and the favorable hedonic shopping experience in both physical and virtual markets are the strongest predictors of consumer complicity to obtain illicit movies. Implications for managers are to discourage complicity through demarketing campaigns that defray the hedonic shopping stimulus, foster a credible ethical concern, and create a negative association of inferior quality towards the fake movies.
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... Various stakeholders are addressing sugar in processed foods and soft drinks linked with the rising health problems of obesity and diabetes (Colchero, Popkin, Rivera, & Ng, 2016;Scammon, Mayer, & Smith, 1991). Companies and governmental agencies (e.g., U.S. Department of Homeland Security) are designing ways to reduce the undesirable demand of counterfeit and pirated goods, such as movie piracy and counterfeit pharmaceuticals (Cesareo & Stöttinger, 2015;Chaudhry & Stumpf, 2013;Chaudhry, Cesareo, & Stumpf, 2014). Both public officials and private agencies are addressing concerns of severe water shortages, making individuals rethink the price/value relationship of water--water is not "free"--as demand management policies are needed to safeguard this limited commodity (Guli, 2015;Kowitt, 2016). ...
... Combative demarketing--a new subcategory of selective demarketing, as conceived of and defined by us--refers to tactics a company may use to deter the undesirable demand of counterfeit products (e.g., fake pharmaceuticals; Chaudhry & Stumpf, 2013) and pirated goods (e.g., online movie piracy; Chaudhry et al., 2014). Globalization and the rise of the internet (Chaudhry, 2017b) fostered the proliferation of illicit product suppliers. ...
Demarketing is a way for managers to cope with excess and/or undesirable demand for their products or services. In this article, we revisit the original framework and modify the classification scheme of demarketing concepts introduced by Kotler and Levy to reflect more contemporary issues. Previously, general demarketing topics addressed ways to curb excess demand due to temporary shortages,
chronic overpopularity, and product elimination–—all from a microenvironmental perspective. Herein, we add macroenvironmental concepts of protective demarketing and preventive demarketing. Formerly, selective demarketing addressed either undesirable or unprofitable consumption of the legitimate product/service; today,
however, many firms across several sectors are fighting against the undesirable consumption of illegitimate products/services, such as pirated and counterfeit goods. We thus introduce the notion of combative demarketing. We conducted personal interviews with several industry experts to provide insight regarding current
demarketing tools. Our discussions highlighted various measures that managers can employ to manage consumer demand, including using smaller packaging to reduce sugar/fat content, increasing the price of water, limiting visitor access to national parks, and educating consumers to identify counterfeit goods.
... A decade ago, the luxury goods industry used anticounterfeiting slogans, like "What do your fake fashions say about you? I'm a phony" and "Real ladies don't like fake," to get consumers to disassociate with counterfeit luxury brands (Chaudhry et al., 2014). Other anticounterfeiting campaigns employed role models (e.g., Jackie Chan's "Mission to Stop Piracy"), peer pressure (e.g., "Piracy Doesn't Work in New York City"), education (e.g., Pfizer's "Counterfeits are smart. ...
Dupe—slang for duplicate—influencers are individuals who persuade buyers to purchase counterfeits using social media platforms to drive a brand message intended to confer legitimacy on the purchase decision. Dupe influencers sell fake luxury goods online to their cadres of followers, who relate to the influencers’ fashion savviness and who trust their judgment of products’ quality. In this article, I provide a synopsis of a case Amazon settled against two dupe influencers who used social media to promote the sale of counterfeit luxury products. I highlight the persistent challenge of luxury counterfeits sold online, the consumer complicity of obtaining luxury fakes, and the problem of discerning a knockoff from a counterfeit product. Dupe influencers leverage trust with their followers and use social media tactics, such as unboxing videos and designer haul promotions, to peddle luxury fakes. Recommendations to combat dupe influencers center on monitoring and working with e-commerce platforms to shut down social media posts that infringe a company’s intellectual property; raising consumer awareness of the illicit activities of counterfeiters through education campaigns; leveraging legitimate social influencers to debunk the dupe influencers; and pursuing legal remedies.
... Although the current literature does not provide evidence for idealism's impact on the attitude toward LCP, previous research has provided some evidence for the influence of idealism on the attitude toward counterfeit products. For instance, it has been demonstrated that idealism has a negative impact on the attitude toward counterfeit products (Chaudhry et al., 2014;Sharif et al., 2016;Souiden et al., 2018) and counterfeit luxury products . Saha and Mathew (2019) confirmed the negative correlation between attitude toward counterfeit fashion brands and idealism. ...
This study examines the impact of idealism, possession‐based happiness, and the attitude toward the legality of counterfeits on the willingness to buy counterfeit luxury brands in Turkey and Slovenia. Data are collected from 205 consumers in Slovenia and 224 consumers in Turkey and analyzed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling. The results confirm a negative impact of idealism on the attitude toward the legality of counterfeits and a positive impact of this attitude on the willingness to purchase counterfeit luxury brands. Turkish consumers show a positive effect of possession‐based happiness on the attitude toward counterfeits. The impact of idealism and possession‐based happiness on the willingness to purchase counterfeit luxury brands among Slovenian or Turkish consumers was not found. The study contributes to the literature by providing a cross‐cultural focus on specific personal antecedents, which the current literature has limited knowledge of and conflicting findings.
... Influential factors behind consumer attitudes and behaviors towards online music piracy have also been studied: low morality and ethicality (in terms of moral equity, ethical concerns, idealism and relativism, ethical beliefs), scarce perception of the illegality of piracy and the low awareness of the negative consequences and social costs of downloading, generate favorable attitudes towards online music piracy (Ang et al., 2001;Lysonski and Durvasula, 2008;Shoham and Ruvio, 2008;Chaudhry et al., 2014;Weijters et al., 2014). Furthermore, peer influence, social acceptance and the perception that people deemed close and relevant by the individual want a consumer to hold such a behavior are also found to be positive predictors of online piracy (D' Astous et al., 2005, Yang et al., 2014. ...
Purpose: This paper analyzes Italian consumers’ music habits, in terms of online piracy behaviors and their interest toward subscription-based music services (SBMS), i.e. services that for a small monthly fee give users legal access to vast libraries across multiple devices. The objective is to try and profile a piracy-prone consumer and explore if SBMS can be a viable alternative to online music piracy in Italy, where the general piracy rate is very high.
Methodology: The study is based on an empirical quantitative analysis through the collection of 505 questionnaires completed by Italian consumers.
Findings: The paper highlights how Italian consumers reflect the ‘attitude-behavior gap’ in music consumption, as they perceive online music piracy as ethically wrong, yet they still show low preference for the legal, reasonably priced choice (such as SBMS). Younger, male, lower education, students have the highest propensity towards online piracy. In addition, consumers’ awareness, familiarity and interest with subscription-based music services are still very low.
Research limitations: The limitations of the paper are linked mainly to the adapted scales, to the omission of alternative determinants of attitude towards piracy, to the composition of the sample and for analyzing just two subscription-based music services (Napster and Spotify).
Managerial implications: The results call for greater efforts by music industry actors and public institutions to educate Italian consumers about the consequences of their online piracy behavior and the possible solutions offered by SBMS.
Originality/value: This paper is the first to focus on Italian consumers’ music habits, their attitude and behavior towards online piracy and their interest toward subscription-based music services as a viable alternative.
The purpose of this chapter is to join the findings from the descriptive and content analyses in order to highlight the main insights from the study, the managerial implications and discuss some of the most recent research that tries to tackle emerging gaps in the literature while proposing an agenda for future research in the field.
Counterfeiting is one of the fastest growing industries in the world across a wide range of product categories, including music, movies, food, computer software, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers and machinery parts. Prior research has focused mostly on deceptive counterfeiting in which the consumers are not aware about buying counterfeit products, with little attention to non-deceptive counterfeiting in which consumers knowingly purchase counterfeit products. Most of this research is fragmented and exploratory in nature, resulting in mixed or inconclusive findings that leave many important questions unanswered. For example, it is still not clear why some customers are more likely to buy counterfeit products compared to others. We address this important gap by conceptualizing counterfeit proneness (CFP), an individual-level psychological trait that is closely associated with counterfeit purchase behavior. We also develop a scale to measure this trait and validate it through a series of empirical studies. We also discuss some limitations of our approach and directions for future research.
Much prior literature has focused on how hedonic shopping motivation operates in hedonic environments such as shopping malls. Few empirical studies assess hedonic shopping motivation effects in utilitarian shopping environments. Combining a field survey (Study 1) with observation using video ethnography (Study 2), our research addresses this issue. Our results empirically reveal how through both psychological and behavioral routes hedonic shopper motivation affects purchases in a utilitarian environment, specifically a section of a superstore
This study relates consumer ethics and attitudes to the recent controversy over file-sharing Web sites such as Napster, Morpheus, and Kazaa. Data were collected from college students to determine their ethical attitudes toward downloading music without paying as well as their attitudes toward record companies and recording artists. Twenty-one students participated in a qualitative study, and 210 participated in a follow-up quantitative study. Results suggest that downloading reflects more than just access to high-speed technology. The findings suggest that respondents who download music from the Internet differ from those who do not download in that downloaders have lesser ethical concern., indicating a greater willingness to endorse ethically questionable acts, and that downioaders are more likely to believe that downloading files does not harm the company or the artists
This study examines the impact of attitude toward piracy on intention to buy pirated CDs using Chinese samples. Attitude toward piracy is measured by a multi-item scale that has been shown to have a consistent factor structure with four distinct components, namely, social cost of piracy, anti-big business attitude, social benefit of dissemination, and ethical belief. Our findings reveal that social benefit of dissemination and anti-big business attitude have a positive relationship with intention to buy pirated CDs while social cost of piracy and ethical belief have a negative relationship. Among these components, ethical belief tends to most strongly predict intention to buy pirated CDs. Demographic variables such as gender and age also help explain the respondents' intention to buy pirated CDs. In addition, those respondents with experience of buying pirated CDs would tend to be more likely to buy pirated CDs than those without such experience. The results are discussed with a view to helping copyright businesses to effectively suppress piracy, and directions for future research are suggested.
A critical element in the evolution of a fundamental body of knowledge in marketing, as well as for improved marketing practice, is the development of better measures of the variables with which marketers work. In this article an approach is outlined by which this goal can be achieved and portions of the approach are illustrated in terms of a job satisfaction measure.
Business managers, policymakers and legal advisors need to monitor several trends relating to the protection of a firm’s intellectual property on the internet. On the one hand, the internet has presented many companies with the opportunity to explore markets, gather information, and sell through the web. On the other hand, this virtual marketplace has been a way for unscrupulous players in an intricate game of cyber crime to renounce a company’s intellectual property rights and channel illicit goods by way of the internet piracy pyramid. The overall positive growth in global technology, such as internet penetration rates, has also paradoxically created a lucrative distribution channel for the counterfeit trade. According to the Internet World Stats, the 2011 global population distribution of internet users in the world is comprised of Asia (44%), Europe (22.7%), North America (13%), Latin America/Caribbean (10.3%), Africa (5.7%), the Middle East (3.3%), and Oceania/Australia (1%). However, a closer look at the statistics reveals that the regions of Africa, the Middle East and Latin America have experienced growth rates of over 1,000 percent in the past decade.
The augmentation of legislation designed to curb internet piracy, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA), has ignited controversy surrounding its enforcement, especially the ‘safe harbor’ provisions. The divergent outcomes of the litigation filed against EBay for selling counterfeit goods at its internet auction site by both Tiffany’s and Louis Vuitton is testimony to the dilemma facing firms that goods are sold by way of the internet.
This work aims to give the most complete description of various characteristics
of the IPR environment in a global context. We believe a holistic understanding of
the problem must include consumer complicity to purchase counterfeit products,
tactics of the counterfeiters (pirates) as well as actions (or inaction) by home and
host governments, and the role of international organizations and industry alliances.
This book establishes the full environmental aspects of piracy, describes successful
anticounterfeiting actions, and then prescribes measures IPR owners should take to
protect their intellectual property.
The growing number of academic studies on customer satisfaction and the mixed findings they report complicate efforts among managers and academics to identify the antecedents to, and outcomes of, businesses having more-versus less-satisfied customers. These mixed findings and the growing emphasis by managers on having satisfied customers point to the value of empirically synthesizing the evidence on customer satisfaction to assess current knowledge. To this end, the authors conduct a meta-analysis of the reported findings on customer satisfaction. They document that equity and disconfirmation are most strongly related to customer satisfaction on average. They also find that measurement and method factors that characterize the research often moderate relationship strength between satisfaction and its antecedents and outcomes. The authors discuss the implications surrounding these effects and offer several directions for future research.
Due to the globalisation of counterfeiting activities, the penetration of fake products in open market is growing. So far, the technologies to combat counterfeiting are mostly applied to high-value products (e.g. premium wine and branded handbags); however, in the medium- and low-value products' perspective, there is no secure way for consumers to identify whether the purchased items are genuine or not. To address the counterfeiting problems effectively, a platform for identifying authenticated products and promoting anti-counterfeit activities is very important. The aim of this paper is to design and develop an anti-counterfeit platform which includes two functions: providing customers a secure network to ascertain the genuineness of their purchased product and increasing public awareness of the current counterfeit problems and updated anti-counterfeit solutions. By combining these two functions, it enables public to fight against fake and beware of counterfeit. Results of adopting portal technology in anti-counterfeiting show high accuracy in product checking and improved creditability. This reveals that the applicability and advantage of the proposed methodology are satisfactory.