Do I want to pay to download movies. Factors affecting acceptance of legal movie download services
| Pages | 45-60 |
| Date | 12 March 2018 |
| Published date | 12 March 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-03-2017-0019 |
| Author | Sunghan Ryu,Byungho Park |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information & communications technology |
Do I want to pay to
download movies
Factors affecting acceptance of legal movie
download services
Sunghan Ryu
Department of Information Systems,
City University of Hong Kong College of Business,
Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, and
Byungho Park
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) College of Business,
Seoul, The Republic of Korea
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to understand the nature and characteristics of legal movie
downloadservices and to explore the factors that influence user acceptanceof the services.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors analyzed the three aspects (i.e. hedonic information
systems, ethical and legal consideration and user characteristics) of legal movie download services and
empirically examinedhow they affect the potential users’behavioral intent to adopt the services basedon the
theory of reasoned action (TRA). An online survey of 142 respondents about a real legal movie download
services,currently operated by a major online serviceprovider, was conducted.
Findings –Perceived playfulness and perceivedusefulness had statistically significant effects on attitude.
The relationships between subjectivenorms and its influencers are validated for moral judgment as well as
risk aversion. The influence of price consciousness and past experience on behavioral intent to adopt the
service are both supported. In the TRA model, attitude and subjective norms had statistically significant
influenceon behavioralintent to adopt the services.
Originality/value –The authors contribute to extending the literature on online pirating behavior from
the different perspective,i.e. adoption of new legal alternatives. The study shows that the specific boundary
conditions, i.e. hedonic attributeof information systems and existence of illegal alternatives,would generate
the differentresults from the theories and previous literature.
Keywords Information systems, Ethics, Consumer behaviour, Moral responsibility,
Theory of reasoned action, Legal movie download services
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The movie industry heavily relies on sequential distribution channels (Hennig-Thurau
et al., 2006). These ancillary markets produce higher revenues than the primary theatrical
market (Eliashberg et al., 2006). Moreover, the margins in these ancillary markets are
higher than those in many other businesses of the studios (Smith and Telang, 2009).
There are several channels for distributing movies and the rapid advances in digital
technology significantly increase the importance of online distribution (Papies and
Clement, 2008;Pardo, 2013). According to an industry report, online videos are watched
by 84 per cent of Americans, with millennials spending 48 per cent more time with online
Do I want to
pay to
download
movies?
45
Received20 March 2017
Revised16 May 2017
Accepted31 May 2017
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.16 No. 1, 2018
pp. 45-60
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-03-2017-0019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
videos than average (comScore, 2014). Given this context, it is natural that the internet is
viewed as a promising ancillary market; indeed, the number of online distribution
channels (such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video, Google Play Movies and Hulu) is
on the rise. Despite the importance of the online ancillary market, many issues still need
to be considered. The most important concern is that the movie industry faces internet
piracy (similar to the music industry), mostly through illegal downloads (Das, 2008).
Technological advances have enabled people to share movie files through the internet
without the permission of the copyright owners. The increase in network bandwidth that
allows fast data transfers now allows consumers to download an entire movie in minutes.
It enables them to illegally circulate vast volumes of illegitimate movies (Wang and
McClung, 2012). Another crucial point is that because of the decentralized method of file
sharing (i.e. peer-to-peer (P2P) network) it is difficult to estimate the exact scale of illegal
downloads and damages to the industry (Jacobs et al., 2012). In the given situation, movie
studios constantly expand their online distribution channels without deep understanding
of existing and potential users of those online services.
The behavior of illegal online download has also become the focus of academics. For
example, a series of studies examined the motivation and behavior of users engaging in
illegal file sharing of illegitimate music and software (Nandedkar and Midha, 2012;Gopal
et al.,2004;Jambon and Smetana, 2012;Woolley, 2015;Chen et al.,2008). Most of these
studies examined the attitude and intent associated with illegal downloads and focused on
diverse aspects of the issue such as the economic value (Chen et al.,2008;Danaher et al.,
2017), legal/ethical reasoning (Jambon and Smetana, 2012;Altschuller and Benbunan-Fich,
2009) and emotional facets (Nandedkar and Midha, 2012;Chen et al., 2008;Culiberg et al.,
2016). However, there is a paucity of research on legal movie download services. Further,
only a few studies considered the relationship of substitution between illegal versus legal
services. The current study aims to address this gap. This study has two main objectives.
The first is to understand the characteristics of legal movie download services (LMDS,
hereafter), and how they are different from other types of online services. The second is to
explore the factors that influence user acceptance of legal movie download services. To
achieve these objectives, the theory of reasoned action (TRA) has been adopted as the
theoretical framework. We derive our hypotheses related to user behavior in the context of
LMDS from the perspectiveof hedonic information systems, ethical andlegal considerations
and user characteristics.
2. Literature review
2.1 Motivations of online piracy behavior
A large number of studies have examined the motivations and behaviors of illegal file
sharing (Woolley, 2015;Altschuller and Benbunan-Fich, 2009;Chiou et al., 2005;
Nandedkar and Midha, 2012;Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2006). For example, Chen et al. (2008)
found that the consumption value of P2P network users significantly influences their
behavioral intentions to use music download service. Plowman and Goode (2009) verify
that individuals’ability to download online music and the price of music in legitimate
services are the most relevant factors affecting individuals’illegal music downloading
behavior. They also found the difference between heavy and light users indicating that
the price of music is important for both users, while the quality of music is only
significant for heavy users. Cronan and Al-Rafee (2008) examined the factors that affect
users’intent to illegally download software. They found that users’attitudes and
perceived behavioral control were positively correlated with their intention to pirate
software, while subjective norms did not show any significant relationship. This study
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