Explaining Young People’s Involvement in Online Piracy: An Empirical Assessment Using the Offending Crime and Justice Survey in England and Wales

Abstract

The internet has been widely acknowledged as facilitating many forms of youth offending. Existing research has identified important drivers of young people's involvement in online crime, yet this has overwhelmingly relied on school or college samples. As such, it tells us little about those young people that have left the formal education system -a group who are more likely perpetrators of juvenile crime more generally. Focusing on young peoples' involvement in online piracy offences, our analysis draws on data from a nationally representative survey of England and Wales to better understand the dynamics of involvement in online crime across the population. We assess the potential overlaps between online and offline offending, the role of differential association and deviancy neutralization techniques in shaping offending behavior, as well as the protective effect of strong family support networks in reducing involvement in piracy. We find that illegal downloaders tend to be young, male, and have a higher number of delinquent friends. We also find that many of these offenders do not confine their offending to online spaces, with involvement in offline property offences also high amongst this group.

Perceived Formal and Informal Sanctions in Deterring Cybercrime in a College Sample

“…Even when it comes to simpler minor forms of cybercrime, individuals still generally need to associate with others to learn how to use newer types of technology and for the cybercriminal behavior to be socially reinforced (Bossler & Burruss, 2011). At a minimum, prevention programs for college students and youth need to recognize the harmful influence of deviant peers, the need to counteract those effects, and the need to promote strong networks within families, schools, and communities that support prosocial online behavior (Brunton-Smith & McCarthy, 2016; Holt et al, 2010).…”

“…The relationship between sex, race, and year in school (or age) and cybercrime often depends on the cybercrime being examined and the type of sample. Males are generally more likely to pirate (Brunton-Smith & McCarthy, 2016; Donner, 2016; Gunter, 2009; Moon et al, 2013; Skinner & Fream, 1997; Udris, 2016), computer hack (Donner, 2016; Marcum et al, 2014; Udris, 2016; Young et al, 2007), and cyber harass (Barlett & Coyne, 2014; J. M. Lee et al, 2018).…”

Is music piracy over? Comparing music piracy attitudes and behaviors between young generations

“…Borja et al (2015) find that positive peer attitudes toward piracy (e.g., “my friends do it all the time”) increase its likelihood. According to Brunton‐Smith and McCarthy (2016), cybercrime is more prevalent among individuals with a higher number of delinquent friends. Finally, Gunter (2008) claims that when peers and parents support music piracy, college students are more likely to engage in these acts.…”

Causes and consequences of unauthorized use of books: readers, authors, and publishers' perspective

“…Second, there is a lack of studies on perceived causes and consequences of unauthorized use of books that would employ qualitative methods analyzing all three stakeholders' groups – publishers, authors and readers. Usually only users' behavior with regard to piracy (Brunton-Smith and McCarthy, 2016; Dionísio et al , 2013; Jonas and Sirkeci, 2018; Lee et al , 2019; Nkiko, 2014; Yoon, 2011) or publishers' losses associated with it (Melark, 2011; New Digimarc and Nielsen, 2017; Rowe, 2019; White, 2018; Williams, 2018) are assessed. A lack of a deeper analysis (qualitative data) hampers the identification of the causes and understanding the consequences of unauthorized use of books, which, as we suggest, differs among publishers, authors and readers.…”

“…Third, most studies were conducted on large language markets such as the United States (Lysonski and Durvasula, 2008), China (Bai and Waldfogel, 2012), Spain (Camarero et al , 2014), Australia (Phau et al , 2014), South Korea (Lee et al , 2019; Yoon, 2011), England and Wales (Brunton-Smith and McCarthy, 2016), Portugal (Dionísio et al , 2013), the UK and Germany (Jonas and Sirkeci, 2018), and Indonesia (Hati et al , 2019). There is a lack of studies conducted on small language markets.…”