Executive Summary
Worldwide purchases of counterfeit and pirated products continue to rise despite various industry and government efforts to quell their growth. Attempts to combat piracy are typically aimed at both the supply of and the demand for such products. With respect to the supply side, efforts are made to locate, apprehend, and prosecute pirated-product manufacturers and distributors. On the demand side, attempts are made to educate the buying public that acquiring pirated products is illegal, unethical, and socially unacceptable and to prosecute those willing to acquire such materials. However, relatively little effort has been made to understand the consumer psychology underlying why people are willing to purchase goods known to be pirated and of an illegal nature. The few studies that have examined consumer decisions underlying the purchase of pirated media have been limited in their approach by focusing almost exclusively on main-effects relationships and by using noncausal research designs. This article addresses these shortcomings by examining how various factors that consumers may perceive as constraining their ability to purchase genuine products lead them to acquire pirated products and to condone such behavior in others.
The authors report the results from three studies (two of which are experimental) that test three moderators of the consumption constraint effects using various settings, stimuli, and consumer types. The findings support the hypotheses that factors that may be perceived as limiting consumption can lead to higher piracy-related activity and are moderated by ethical beliefs, interpersonal social influence, and trait psychological reactance. The three studies demonstrate that various consumption-limiting factors can have a deleterious effect on consumer behavior, particularly under the conditions of various moderating factors. The variety of limiting factors studied—originating from supplier, channel, consumer, and government conditions—and the three moderating variables offer a comprehensive examination of how price, scarcity, and government restrictions can influence consumers to seek alternative sources for the products they want. Collectively, the three studies examine potential consumption constraints that originate from supplier conditions (temporary stockouts and high price in Study 1, high price in Study 3), distribution channel conditions (lack of home Internet access in Study 2), consumer conditions (low income in Study 2), and government conditions (temporary government restriction in Study 3). In addition, the authors examine the interactive effects of various consumption constraints, showing that resolving one consumption constraint may have little or no effect on reducing piracy behavior for certain consumer groups, unless other consumption constraints are resolved as well. Thus, further research and future efforts by government and industry will need to be more creative in identifying who is prone to consumption constraint effects and how to remedy those effects.
Biography
Anthony D. Miyazaki (PhD, University of South Carolina) is Knight Ridder Research Professor and Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His research, which focuses primarily on pricing management and pricing perceptions, decision making under conditions of risk and uncertainty, and online consumer privacy, has been published in Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, among other outlets. He serves on the editorial review boards of Journal of Public Policy & Marketing and Journal of Business Research.
Alexandra Aguirre Rodriguez (PhD, University of Illinois) is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. Her research concentration is in the area of consumer behavior, more particularly consumer motivation. Under the umbrella topic of consumer motivation, she has written papers on consumer desire, cravings, and self-image congruence, with recent work examining consumer motivation in the context of acculturation and consumption processes of United States immigrants from Hispanic cultures.
Jeff Langenderfer (PhD, University of South Carolina, and JD, North Carolina Central University) is Associate Professor at Meredith College. His research focuses on the effects of technology on privacy, scams and swindles, lotteries, deceptive advertising regulation, and intellectual property and has been published in Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Journal of Language & Social Psychology, Journal of Macromarketing, and other academic journals. He serves on the editorial review board of Journal of Consumer Affairs.
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Volume 28, Number 1, Spring 2009
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