Attitudes towards music piracy: the impact of positive anti-piracy messages and contribution of personality

Conventional anti-piracy strategies have been largely ineffective, with pirates adapting successfully to legal and technological changes. The present research aims to address the two principal areas of research – predictive factors and deterrents – in a novel way with personality being considered as a potential predictive factor and positive anti-piracy messages proposed as a potentially effective deterrent. 261 participants (45.6% male) with a mean age of 26.3 participated in an online questionnaire, outlining their music consumption preferences and completing the 60-item version of the Hexaco PI-R (Lee and Ashton, 2004) before being allocated to one of four conditions: legal sales of music encourage future live performances, legal sales of music allow fans greater access to exclusive content, legal sales of music will incorporate charitable donations and a control. Participants’ attitudes towards music piracy were then measured using an original construct (AMP-12). Condition had no effect on piracy attitudes where personality was a significant predictor, with participants scoring higher on the AMP-12 scoring lower on honesty-humility and conscientiousness and higher on openness. Openness emerged as a key individual difference, with participants scoring higher on this trait demonstrating a greater likelihood to favour vinyl, re-mastered versions of albums and listening to live recordings. Crucially, preference for digital music was a significant predictor of pro-piracy attitudes. Several demographic differences were also observed which point towards a gender-segmented approach in appeasing individuals engaging in music piracy as well as accommodating the increasing trend for digital music. Implications for future anti-piracy strategies are discussed.