Equity perceptions as a deterrent to software piracy behavior

Software piracy is a problem for the software industry. An estimated world-wide piracy rate of 35%, representing approximately a $31 billion dollar loss in 2004 was reported by the second annual Business Software Alliance (BSA) and International Data Corporation (IDC) piracy study. This high rate shows piracy to be a significant global problem. Both BSA and the Software and Information Industry Association consider the impact of piracy to be a critical issue and have established web links to allow anonymous reporting of software piracy. Deterrents have been welcomed by software producers and others. Equity theory offers a possible explanation of software piracy behavior but no models have been shown to link equity constructs as having a direct influence on software piracy. We investigated the use of equity theory (fairness) as a deterrent to software piracy. Our results identified equity components that significantly influenced equity in the context of software piracy and further indicated that equity significantly influenced software piracy.