Purchase or pirate: Is ethical ideology or age more effective at predicting acquisition choice for online music?

摘要

A study using 454 respondents recruited through SurveyMonkey were used to quantitatively test whether age or ethical position is better able to predict purchasing rates for digital music acquisition. The respondents had an age range from 18 to 80 and lived in the United States. The sample had a diverse and representative geographic and economic distribution. The sample was made up of 59% males and had a slightly higher level of educational attainment than the US population. Ethical position was operationalized in this study using Forsyth's (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ). The study found that age is better able to predict purchasing rates than ethical measures. Age had a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.302 and was able to explain the variability of the sample's purchase rates for 9.1% of the data. In this sample, the trend line for purchasing rate was close to linear, suggesting that as a group people tend to purchase higher percentages of their music gradually as they age. Whether this effect can be attributed to individuals is beyond the scope of this study. The age range with the highest purchasing rate was the early 60s. Another finding of interest was the overall piracy rate of 56.4% for this sample, which is significantly lower than the 95% piracy rate typically discussed in the literature.