Abstract
Prior conceptualizations of piracy in IS assume that individuals who pirate (download or access unauthorized content) acknowledge that their behavior constitutes piracy and do so with intention. In other words, the person knows they are engaging in something illegal or immoral and accepts this. Additionally, the most well-known theory of moral decision-making, the four-component model of moral decision-making by Rest, posits that moral action fails due to a breakdown in any of these four components: Moral Activation, Moral Reasoning, Moral Motivation, and Moral Character. We argue, based on 33 interviews, that actual piracy cases are more complex than this. Individuals may not recognize that their behavior constitutes piracy. Moreover, the four components identified by Rest may be bypassed in the case of digital piracy, allowing the behavior to evade the moral logic of moral decision-making altogether. We use a grounded theory methodology to tease out actions that individuals see as being digital piracy in their personal conceptualization and we then model those actions on a framework that classifies piracy behaviors on their intentionality and the level of apathy individuals have towards it.
Recommended Citation
Bowman, Andy; Hammer, Bryan; and Siponen, Mikko, "Grounded Theory Investigation into Contemporary Digital Piracy Reasoning" (2025). WISP 2025 Proceedings. 25.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/wisp2025/25