Eesti noorte hoiakud internetipiraatluse suhtes

Abstract

Internet piracy is an illegal activity that has become commonplace all over the world despite its discordance with the current legislation and business models. Some authors suggest that Internet piracy is much more than just an economic problem and has become a social phenomenon with it’s own set of rules, principles and ideals (Altschuller & Benbunnan-Fich 2009). In any case, a practice so widespread can not be ignored nor abolished easily, which is why it needs to be understood and researched in order to bridge the gap between how things are and how they should be according to the law. As no comprehensive research on the topic of Internet piracy has ever been carried out in Estonia, the current study serves to make the first step to explore the significance of piracy for Estonians. A standardized questionnaire was conducted to study young peoples attitudes towards internet piracy. Questions about ethical considerations and Internet piracy related social norms were also included in the study. The questionnaire was distributed mainly in Facebook and the final sample consisted of 882 Estonian men and women between the ages of 15 and 30. The results indicate that Internet piracy is an extremely widespread practice among the sample and more than half of those questioned consider it a habit. Most young people in the sample associate Internet piracy with positive effects as they see it benefitting the society as a whole through dissemination of culture and by helping starting artists gain popularity. Economic losses are associated mainly with the anonymous industry and shops and somewhat less with well-known rich artists. The results also indicate that subjects try to direct the possible guilt as far from themselves as possible with stating that their own pirating does not produce any direct harm to anyone. Most subjects associate Internet piracy with positive emotsions and correlation analysis suggests that the stronger the positive emotions the more often the subjects tend to pirate. As a general rule the subjects did not have any fears when pirating digital media, which was expected as no-one has ever been prosecuted for illegal downloading in Estonia. In the legal point of view the risks of getting caught are extremely low, but it also turns out that for the subjects the social risks are as low as the legal risks. Most subjects believe that Internet piracy is accepted by their friends and acquaintances and only a few admitted to ever having been told off by their friends for pirating. Taking all this into consideration, it’s not surprising that most subjects deem Internat piracy acceptable and feel no remorse while practicing it. Although 91% of the subjects pirate regularly, still a fourth of the sample considers piracy to be ethically wrong. Therefore it appears that there are some considerations that make people go against what they think is wrong. All in all, the current study suggests that Internet piracy is a normative behaviour among the sample and that it’s strongly associated with positive effects and emotions. As the risk on getting caught while pirating is so low and the possible harm is not in view, the subjects do not consider their pirating as a problem.