SYNOPSIS:

Software companies in the United States lose an estimated $3 billion a year to the illegal copying of software, commonly referred to as software piracy. The risk of potential law-suits by software developers, the lack of documentation and support, and the risk of viruses make software piracy a costly behavior for companies and universities. Despite these costs, many individuals are still unaware of the ethical and legal aspects of software piracy. The purpose of this study is to provide an understanding of the factors influencing software piracy behavior. This information should be beneficial to companies in developing software policies and guidelines and to educators as they introduce these topics in the classroom. Software piracy behavior is an ethical issue that will affect accountants in their own practices as well as their audit or consulting clients.

This study first evaluated students' knowledge of the copyright laws relating to computer software. Next, the theory of reasoned action, which considers attitudes toward specific actions and the evaluation of social pressures (subjective norms of reference groups) as the underlying causes of behavior, was used as a framework to determine other factors that might affect software piracy behavior. A survey was administered to undergraduate accounting students. Of the 139 students who owned computers, seventy-three percent reported engaging in software piracy. Students' knowledge of the laws appeared to have little impact on piracy behavior. This is probably attributable to the fact that few students were fully aware of the laws, and hardly any students believed that copyright laws were enforced. A student's propensity to pirate software was found to be directly related to the student's attitudes toward the behavior and perception of reference groups. These findings indicate that individuals do not perceive software piracy as map propriate behavior and that they do not believe that their friends and superiors think it is inappropriate.