A brand hegemony rejection explanation for digital piracy

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to uncover the influence of copyright holder/digital media policies on digital piracy behavior using the brand hegemony rejection (BHR) theory. Design/methodology/approach Content analysis of in-depth personal interview data from active digital pirates is analyzed using BHR theory. Findings BHR is found useful in understanding pirating motivations, which vary greatly across time and across digital mediums. Piracy is often motivated by profit enhancing policies of big media copyright holders, which are deemed unfair and not customer-oriented, but such motivations are greatly reduced when copyright holders offer attractive legal means to obtain digital content. Pirates generally do not feel sympathy for large media companies, but some pirates feel guilt that their actions may hurt digital content creators. Research limitations/implications The relatively small sample of pirates is primarily from Norway and hence may not be representative of other media markets. Practical implications A large portion of digital piracy can potentially be eliminated if copyright holders are customer focused and offer desired content with a format and price that are deemed fair. The technical skills of pirates are high, and they can resort to piracy whenever they feel rights holders are not customer-oriented. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first application of BHR theory to the digital piracy arena, and it is found to provide useful insights in explaining the rise and fall of piracy. This application of the BHR theory also suggests it might be usefully applied to the study of other ethically questionable consumer activities.