A Cross-Country Comparison of Software Piracy Determinants Among University Students: Demographics, Ethical Attitudes and Socio-Economic Factors

摘要

Software piracy is widespread in many parts of the world Peer-to-peer (P2P) websites such as Kazaa and more recently the bittorrent websites have made pirated software highly accessible. The issue is immensely important to both the software industry and the research community. Prior research has identified that poverty, cultural values and ethics, religion, and education can impact the piracy levels. This research is comparative analysis of university students' cultural, socio-economic and demographic attributes. It aims at identifying and understanding the software piracy determinants among university students. While efforts are underway to involve research participants from more countries, a survey is currently being conducted in four Pakistani universities and at one university in Canada. The results of the pilot study suggest correlation between the high cost of legal software and software piracy among students'.