Ethics and music: a comparison of students at predominantly white and black colleges, and their attitudes toward file sharing.

Gerlich, R. Nicholas ; Turner, Nancy ; Gopalan, Suresh 等

ABSTRACT

The relationship between race and ethics has been explored in recent years, but to date only limited mixed empirical results have been recorded. Still, the notion of examining a race/ethics relationship has relevance because of the variance in culture by race.

In the last few years, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has launched thousands of lawsuits aimed at students in the university community. These lawsuits are aimed at people engaged in allegedly illegal music file sharing. While some progress has been made recently in assessing students' ethical beliefs about illegal music downloading, as well as differences based on student age, no information exists regarding racial and cultural differences in attitudes toward illegally downloading music.

This study examined student beliefs at two institutions, one a historically white university, the other a historically black university. The results showed that while there were some price sensitivity differences between blacks and whites regarding the prices of CDs and music downloads, there were no significant differences in their ethical views toward music downloading and file sharing. Both groups demonstrated generally equally favorable views toward illegal music downloading.

INTRODUCTION

Electronic music downloads (EMDs) continue to generate controversy in the recorded music industry. In the first years of the 21st century, sales of pre-recorded CDs plummeted, and were blamed in part on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing of songs by individuals. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed suit against thousands of persons engaged in allegedly illegal file-sharing. In the past three years, numerous pay-per-song sites have emerged, offering people a legal way to acquire recorded music. Portable digital music devices such as the iPod interface easily with computers as well as download sites, making digital music a powerful force in the market. The ubiquity of devices such as the iPod stresses the importance of music portability, and thus legal and illegal music download sites both have thrived.

In spite of lawsuits by the RIAA to counteract the number of songs illegally downloaded via the internet, the practice of P2P file sharing continues practically unabated. Although the sale of legal music downloads is up significantly, the number of music files on file sharing networks has continued to rise as well.

Sales of recorded music on CD have plummeted in recent years. While unit sales were 722.9 million in 1995 and 942.5 million in 2000, they fell to 766.9 million in 2004 (Information Please 2005). During that same time, electronic music downloads (EMDs) soared. Although illegal downloads have flattened out somewhat in recent months, the number of online music files at file-sharing sites rose three-percent in the first one-half of 2005, from 870 million files to 900 million files (IFPI 2005).

The RIAA continues to pursue offenders with clockwork regularity. On October 26, 2005, another 745 persons on 17 college campuses were sued individually for illegal file sharing by the RIAA. This followed similar size batches on September 29 and August 31. (RIAA 2004 & 2005, EFF 2003-2005, Aughton 2005) These "John Doe" suits are in addition to the thousands of such suits filed since Spring 2003, and monthly since February 2004, and exclusive of hundreds of additional "named defendant" suits. (RIAA 2004)

Over 300 legal music download sites now exist, including the likes of Napster, Rhapsody, iTunes, and Wal-Mart. Sales at these online vendors have grown dramatically since their inception. The majority of this trend is accounted for by Apple's iPod portable music device, which accounts for as much as two-thirds of all legal music downloads.

By early 2006, Apple reported it had sold over 1 billion songs through its iTunes service (Apple 2006), this coming only one year after reaching sales of 250 million songs (CNET 2005). By March 2006, Apple had sold over 42 million iPod units since 2001 (Benderhoff 2006). In October 2005, Apple reported it had sold over 6.1 million iPod players in its third quarter of 2005 alone (Ecker 2005), and had also sold over 1 million videos at iTunes in the first 19 days of its market rollout (MacRumors 2005).

Music download sales in 2004 were triple what they were in 2003. Furthermore, there were 180 million single track downloads in the first six months of 2005, compared to 157 million in all of 2004, and only 57 million in the first six months of 2004 (IFPI 2005). For the entire year, there were 352.7 million legal music downloads in 2005 (Barnes 2006).

Still, a late-2004 CAIDA study shows that, while the industry is enjoying rising legal music download sales, illegal P2P file sharing has not declined (Karagiannis 2004). College students are assumed to be a primary group of offenders (RIAA), as evidenced by the number of campuses targeted with lawsuits. But no distinction has been made by the RIAA regarding the racial compositions at these colleges. Are all college students as likely to engage in illegal music sharing and copying? Or is there a higher likelihood that one racial group may engage in this activity over another?

Gerlich, et al (2005) and Gerlich and Turner (2006) have examined the ethical values of college students regarding legal and illegal music download activities. As a whole, they found that college students demonstrate favorable views toward illegally downloading music, with little or no fear of prosecution. They also found numerous significant differences in ethical values based on the age groups of students (tradition 18-24 year olds vs. older students), with older students showing less favorable views toward illegal downloading activities. Gerlich and Turner call for more analysis of the subject based on gender, socio-economic class, and race to determine if and where important differences may exist. In so doing, the RIAA may be better able to target its lawsuits in the future.

The need thus exists to further study this phenomenon and determine current attitudes toward the practice, identifying those most likely to participate in such illegal activities and why. This will allow the industry to more effectively determine the best approach for deterring continued offenses.

THE STUDY

A survey that measured music downloading activity was developed and administered to students at two regional universities in their respective Colleges of Business. Participation was not mandatory, thus rendering this a volunteer sample. One school is a historically white college (HWC), while the other is a historically black college (HBC). Technically, the HWC is a public university, but its enrollment has always been predominantly white. Both schools have an 80% or greater majority of the predominant group. A total of 254 usable surveys were collected at the HWC school, while 71 were collected at the HBC school.

The practice of using historically white or black colleges for studies of this purpose is established in McCuddy and Peery (1996), as well as Gerlich and Gopalan (1993a, 1993b). Colleges such as these, while not 100% homogeneous, tend to exhibit the dominant cultural traits and values of the largest racial/ethnic group on campus.

A variety of demographic variables were measured, including gender, age, class rank, computer ownership, and internet usage. Respondents were then asked to rate their level of agreement/disagreement with 14 attitudinal statements that measured their views on both illegal and legal music downloading, industry pricing, music sharing, and the threat of being sued. For the purposes of this study, only the mean responses to the attitudinal questions were studied and compared between the two groups of respondents.

RACE AS A FACTOR

As noted by McCuddy and Peery (1996), the relationship between race and ethics is a relatively underexplored topic, and thus ripe for further exploration. Thus far results in the field have been mixed. Stead, et al (1987), using scenarios, found no relationship between race and unethical decisions. Tsalikis and Nwachukuru (1988) exposed black and white students to different ethical scenarios, and found the two groups to share ethical beliefs in one instance, but not share them in another. McCuddy and Peery found significant correlational differences in four of five of their hypotheses, but correlations do not allow for causal inferences.

The connection between race and culture, though, is more firmly established. England (1975) and Hofstede (1980) contend that people raised in different cultures have different values and ethical belief systems. McClelland (1961) and Prasad and Rao (1982) argue that different countries and cultures have different effects on business ethics and practices. Norms and standards that exist across cultures and civilizations (e.g., honesty, integrity, etc.) may very well have different levels of adherence across those cultures.

Tat (1981) explored the ethical values of black and white students, and concluded that subculture membership is a determinant of ethical beliefs. Specifically, he found that black and white subjects differed in their ethical perceptions. This may be partially explained by the fact that a sizeable number of minority students are raised in an economically disadvantaged environment. Limitations and experiences imposed by such socio-economic constraints may cause them to have deep-seated views toward business practices that may substantially differ from those of other more economically advantaged groups.

Gerlich and Gopalan (1993a, 1993b) explored how strongly white and black students identified with celebrity endorsers of different races. They found that whites identified nearly equally strongly with white and black celebrities, while blacks identified most strongly with black celebrities, and very poorly with white celebrities. These differences were attributed in large part to differences in culture.

Lee (1981), however, showed that culture did not affect ethical beliefs. His study of Chinese and British managers demonstrated no significant effect due to culture, nor the interaction of culture and level of management. These findings contradict the generally accepted view that different cultures produce different ethical beliefs.

Given the disparities noted above, as well as the magnitude of ethical issues pertaining to illegal music downloads, the primary purpose of this paper is to compare the ethical beliefs of students attending a mainstream campus (that is predominantly White) with those attending a historically Black campus. With respect to sampling, our method is potentially the best possible proxy for studying respondents embedded in mostly homogeneous but relatively different racial backgrounds. The amount of publicity surrounding the RIAA lawsuits has made illegal music downloading one of the most hotly contested ethical subjects of our time. The shotgun method of the RIAA to sue college students without regard or attention to demographic variables or propensities begs the question of whether there are differences between different groups in their ethical views on this activity. In determining if differences exist, the RIAA might be better able to target their lawsuits at the appropriate parties.

HYPOTHESES

Given that the RIAA has primarily targeted university network users in its lawsuits (RIAA 2004), it follows that the primary alleged offenders are typical college students. There is definitely an argument that the RIAA has turned to targeting college students because such suits will generate less bad PR for the industry than suits against young children and grandparents. (Dean 2003 & 2004; Mello 2003; Sullivan 2003; Coleman 2003; Mook 2005) Nonetheless, college campuses are considered a hot bed of illegal download activity with newer high-speed university computer networks adding fuel to the fire, and the issue has become one that college administrators have had to address. This is true not only because of ethical issues, but also system overload. (RIAA 2004) Thus, a survey of college students and their downloading habits is a valid audience.

There has been no apparent attempt by the RIAA to distinguish between the race of college students at the campuses selected for legal scrutiny. We thus can make no a priori assumptions about race-related differences. Thus, for the purposes of this study, it is hypothesized there will be no significant differences in the mean scores between college students at HWC and HBC institutions.

Specifically, we propose 14 hypotheses (as listed below in Table 1 with results), each stemming from a Likert-type statement in the survey.

RESULTS

Respondents were grouped according to their college, with Group 1 consisting of those students at the HWC, and the remainder at the HBC. The mean scores of their responses to the 14 Likert-type questions were calculated and appear below in Table 1. Individual t-statistics and probability values were also calculated and appear in the Table.

The results show that no significant differences exist between the two groups with regard to the ethics of downloading musically illegally and file sharing. There were three significant differences noted (H4, H5, H12); each of these pertained to price sensitivities between the groups.

For example, in H5 the black respondents responded more favorably that the price of CDs is about right. In H12, blacks responded less favorably that "people would burn fewer CDs and share fewer files if the retail price of CDs were not so high."

Conversely, in H4 whites were less price-sensitive to the price per song of legal music downloads (88--99 cents). These findings are interesting because of their apparent contradictions. Black respondents in the study were more accepting of the price of CDs than were whites, but whites were more accepting of the price of per-song downloads. Price sensitivity to the cheaper of two options is perplexing, especially when one considers that a standard CD contains about 12 songs. Purchased separately, these 12 songs would be less than the price of the tangible CD that these respondents were less averse to buying than whites.

More importantly, there were no significant differences reported in hypotheses that examined ethical views regarding music downloading (H1, H2, H3, H8, H10, H13). The similar findings across groups for these statements reflects an overall attitude in favor of illegally downloading and/or sharing music files. In other words, the two groups were similar in their disregard for the intellectual property rights afforded the copyright holders of songs.

DISCUSSION

One possible explanation that might explain H4, may be that black and white respondents may view a CD and a song download as two different products, thereby having different levels of price sensitivity. In a study by Gardyn and Fetto (2003), black consumers were 32% more likely to purchase CDs/taples/records by direct mail advertising than other racial/ethnic segments. It is possible, that this purchasing difference in consumer behavior may account for the perception among black consumers that CDs are priced about right. While our study did not examine the issue of age per se, it is possible, that black and white consumers may exhibit significant differences by age than race.

Although legal music download sales continue to increase rapidly, more work must be done to determine if race-related differences exist among these customers. The fact that the number of online music files rose three percent in the first one-half of 2005 suggests that illegal downloading has not been stunted. The findings discussed above, coupled with 2005 trends, hint that the problem is not going away, and instead may be holding its own or even growing.

It is significant to attempt to understand the reasons for this behavioral difference because, while the RIAA continues its lawsuit bombardment, the effect is questionable at best. The RIAA clearly believes that its strategy of individual lawsuits puts a damper on illegal activity. The pure impracticality of continuing to file suit, 750 or so people at a time when downloads are in the hundreds of millions, does not seem to have deterred the industry (Levin 2003). In fact, the random nature of the lawsuits against individuals seems to be an actual strategy. The President of the RIAA, Cary Sherman, has been quoted as saying "Lawsuits are an important part of the larger strategy to educate file sharers about the law, protect the rights of copyright owners and encourage music fans to turn to these legitimate services." (Martin 2004)

A September 30, 2004 press release found on the RIAA website again emphasizes the organization's position that the lawsuits against university network users are designed to "drive the message to students that unauthorized downloading has consequences" and to make students aware of legal alternatives. (RIAA 2004) The industry seems to be relying still on initial studies from the end of 2003 indicating that use of particular downloading software was down. (Cox 2004; St. Louis 2004) The studies have been somewhat preempted by more recent statistics demonstrating that any effect from the lawsuits would be temporary and that illegal downloads continue to grow. (EFF 2005; Moreno 2003) Still, the industry continues with a new round of suits filed monthly, with accompanying press release. (RIAA 2004) There is a possibility that the suits are doing nothing but raising the ire of consumers, or, worse yet, becoming "old news" to a young generation, if the releases even make it into a bored media. Perhaps there is a better use of the advertising dollar to be determined by looking into what strategies influence different racial groups.

LIMITATIONS

This study is limited in that it uses volunteer student samples that are assumed to represent the larger white and black cultures in the US. Furthermore, business students were recruited into the samples, and these may not be representative of the larger student or overall population in their views regarding music downloading activities.

Further research is needed with larger samples that will allow for more conclusions to be drawn, as well as analysis of other demographic variables such as gender and age, and possible differences between these two groups. Finally, it would be prudent to broaden the scope of future studies to include Asian, Hispanic, and other racial/ethnic groups to determine the degree of similarities/differences across the various racial/ethnic groups.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Apple (2006), "To Every iTunes Music Store Customer, Thanks a Billion," http://www.apple.com/itunes/1billion/, February 23.

Aughton, Simon (2005), "RIAA Fires Off Fresh Suits Against Filesharers," PC Pro, http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/69951/, March 2.

Barnes, Ken (2006), "Album sales slumps as downloads rise," USA Today, January 4, http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/ 2006-01-04-music-sales-main_x.htm?csp=N009.

Benderhoff, Eric (2006), "iPod unit for home speaks of device's continued growth," Chicago Tribune, March 1, http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0603010219mar01,1, 7084466.story?coll=chi-business-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

CNET (2005), "iTunes Hits 250 Million Downloads," http://news.com.com/, January 24.

Coleman, Statement of Norm (2003), Senate Hearings, supra, indicating concern over the RIAA tactics and unintended potentially harsh consequences on some defendants; see also, press release of Senator Coleman, "Coleman Concerned Recording Industry's Rubber-Stamp Subpoenas Inadvertently Target Unwary Consumers: 'Law of Unintended Consequences' May Be Needlessly Threatening American Citizens," http://govtaff. senate.gov/index.

Cox, Evan R. (2004), "RIAA Resumes Legal Offensive: Recording Industry Association Uses John Doe Lawsuits Against P2P File-Swapping Post-Verizon", Internet Newsletter, January 28, ALM.

Dean, Katie (2003), "Schoolgirl Settles With RIAA," Wired News, http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60366,00.html, September 10.

Dean, Katie (2004), "Napster Star Changes His Tune," Wired News, http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,65893,00.html?tw=wn_story_related, December 3.

Ecker, Clint (2005), "Apple Posts Third Quarter Results," ARS Infinite Loop, July 13, http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/7/13/709.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) (1) (2003-2005), http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/?f=riaa-v-thepeople.html, listing "John Doe" suits. The suits make good on the RIAA's promise following the initial September 2003 John Doe suits that further legal action would follow. Lyman, Jay (2003), "RIAA Showdown Set, FCC Rules Blasted," TechNewsWorld at http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/31585.html, September 15.

EFF (2) (2005), "RIAA v. The People: Two Years Later," http://www.eff.org, November 3.

England, G.W. (1975), "The Manager and His Values: An International Perspective," Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Co.

Gardyn, Rebecca and John Fetto (2003). "Race, Ethnicity, and the Way We Shop," American Demographics 25(1), 30-33.

Gerlich, R. Nicholas and Suresh Gopalan (1993a), "An Empirical Investigation of the Relationship of Respondents' Primary Environment and Recognition of Celebrities in Television Advertising," Proceedings of the Atlantic Marketing Association, Orlando (November).

Gerlich, R. Nicholas and Suresh Gopalan (1993b), " An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Viewers' Race and their Association of Celebrities on Television Advertising," Proceedings of the Minority Marketing Conference-Academy of Marketing Science.

Gerlich, R. Nicholas, Nancy Turner, and Pamela H. Wilson (2005), "Electronic Music Downloads: What's An Industry To Do?" Proceedings of the Allied Academies, Memphis (April).

Gerlich, R. Nicholas and Nancy Turner (2006), "Ethics and Music: A Comparison of Traditional and Non-Traditional Student Attitudes Toward File Sharing, Proceedings of the American Society of Business and Behavioral Sciences, Las Vegas (February).

Hofstede, Gert (1980). Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA.

IFPI (2005), "Legal music downloads triple in 2005; file-sharers take heed of lawsuits," IFPI, http://www.ifpi.org/sitecontent/press/20050721.html, July 21.

Information Please (2005), "CD Sales, 1995, 2000, 2004," Information Please Database, Pearson Education, http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0921839.html, citing RIAA.

Karagiannis, Thomas, Andre Broido, Nevil Brownee, K.C. Claffy and Michael Faloutsos (2004), "Is P2P Dying Or Just Hiding?" Cooperative Association For Internet Data Analysis, http://www.caida.org/outreach/papers/2004/p2pdying/p2p-dying.pdf

Lee, Kam-Hon (1981), "Ethical Beliefs in Marketing Management: A Cross-Cultural Study," European Journal of Marketing 15(1), 58-67.

Levin, Statement of Carl (2003), Senate Hearings, supra.

Mac Rumors (2005), "iTunes Video Sales Top 1 Million," MacRumors.com, October 31, http://www.macrumors.com/ pages/2005/10/20051031120604.shtml.

Martin, Anna (2004), "New Wave of RIAA Lawsuits to Target Students", Technician, North Carolina State University SMA, technicianonline.com/04.07.2204/news/

McClelland, D.C. (1961), The Achieving Society (New Jersey: Van Nostrand).

McCuddy, Michael K. and Barbara L. Peery (1996), "Selected Individual Differences and Collegians' Ethical Beliefs," Journal of Business Ethics 15: 261-272.

Mello, Jr., John P. (2003), "RIAA Settles First Lawsuit Against 12-Year-Old Brianna LaHara", TechNewsWorld, http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/31561.html, September 11, quoting Adam Eisgrau of P2P United regarding the terror campaign.

Mook, Nate (2005), "MPAA Offers Deal To Sued Grandfather," Betanews, http://www.betanews.com/article/MPAA_Offers_Deal_to_Sued_Grandfather/ 1131121138, November 4.

Moreno, Statement of Jonathan D., PhD (2003), Senate Hearings, supra.

Prasad, J.N. and C.P. Rao (1982), "Foreign Payoffs and International Business Ethics: Revisited," Southern Marketing Associations Proceedings, 260-264.

RIAA website Press Releases dated 2/17/04, 3/23/04, 4/28/04, 5/24/04, 6/22/04, 7/20/04, 8/25/04, 9/30/04, 10/28/04,11/18/04, 12/16/04, 1/24/05, 2/28/05, 4/12/05, 4/27/05, 5/26/05, 6/29/05, 7/28/05, 8/31/05, 9/29/05, and 10/26/05, each indicating a new set of lawsuits and sporting similar titles to the 3/23/04 release: "RIAA Brings New Round of Cases Against Illegal File Sharers", http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter; regarding college campuses, see, "Music Industry continues campaign against Campus Internet theft," 10/26/05 press release and "RIAA Brings Lawsuits Against 762 Illegal File Sharers," 9/30/04.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (2004), "Editorial: Jailing Joe College, " St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 20, citing study conducted of 1300 internet users from November 18--December 14, 2003, by Pew Internet & American Life Project, www.pewinternet.org.

Stead, W.E., D.L. Worrell, J.B. Spalding and J.G. Stead (1987), "Unethical Decisions: Socially Learned Behaviors," Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 2(1), 105-115.

Sullivan, Statement of Lorraine (2003), Senate Hearings, supra.; Sullivan, Lorraine (2004), "Sued By the RIAA," http://www.suedbytheriaa.com (accessed April16).

Tat, P.K. (1981), "Minority Student Perceptions of the Ethics of Marketing Practices," Southern Marketing Association Proceedings, 214-216.

Tsalikis, J. and O. Nwachukuru (1988), "Cross-Cultural Business Ethics: Ethical Beliefs Differences Between Blacks and Whites," Journal of Business Ethics (7), 745-754.

R. Nicholas Gerlich, West Texas A&M University Nancy Turner, West Texas A&M University Suresh Gopalan, Winston Salem State University

TABLE 1
Summary of attitudinal measures. (Strongly Disagree =1 to Strongly
Agree =5). (*) significant at 0.05 level

 Hypothesis & Survey Statement Mean Score Mean Score
 HWC HBC

H1: It is morally wrong to copy CDs for 2.355 2.436
 friends

H2: It is morally wrong to download 2.984 2.915
 unauthorized music from the
 internet.

H3: The record industry should 2.330 2.285
 prosecute those who have downloaded
 songs illegally from the internet.

H4: Prices ranging from 88 cents to 99 3.248 2.774
 cents per song download are fair
 for consumers.

H5: The retail price of CDs is about 2.375 2.788
 right.

H6: File-sharing sites emerged because 3.377 3.295
 the perceived value of CDs was too
 low in relation to the number
 of good songs on each CD.

H7: The government will eventually be 2.265 2.385
 able to put an end to illegal file
 sharing on the internet.

H8: The threat of being sued will keep 3.234 3.100
 me from illegally sharing files
 on the internet in the future.

H9: It is wrong for the record industry 2.796 2.728
 to make such a big deal about music
 piracy.

H10: The relative ease of downloading 2.928 3.228
 and/or burning CDs makes it too
 tempting for me to swap music
 illegally.

H11: Other people in my household/dorm 3.181 3.314
 have engaged in unauthorized file
 sharing and/or CD burning.

H12: People would burn fewer CDs and 3.815 3.328
 share fewer files if the retail
 price of CDs were not so high.

H13: It is OK to burn a "mix CD" of your 3.762 3.642
 favorite tunes to give to a friend.

H14: I resent the anti-copying features 3.070 2.869
 some record labels have started
 putting on their CDs.

Hypothesis & Survey Statement t p

It is morally wrong to copy CDs for -0.498 0.619
friends

It is morally wrong to download 0.398 0.691
unauthorized music from the internet.

The record industry should prosecute 0.283 0.778
those who have downloaded songs
illegally from the internet.

Prices ranging from 88 cents to 99 2.769 0.007 *
cents per song download are fair for
consumers.

The retail price of CDs is about right. -2.494 0.014 *

File-sharing sites emerged because the 0.550 0.583
perceived value of CDs was too low
in relation to the number of good
songs on each CD.

The government will eventually be -0.763 0.447
able to put an end to illegal file
sharing on the internet.

The threat of being sued will keep me 0.764 0.447
from illegally sharing files on the
internet in the future.

It is wrong for the record industry to 0.434 0.665
make such a big deal about music
piracy.

The relative ease of downloading -1.885 0.062
and/or burning CDs makes it too
tempting for me to swap music
illegally.

Other people in my household/dorm -0.710 0.479
have engaged in unauthorized file
sharing and/or CD burning.

People would burn fewer CDs and 2.674 0.009 *
share fewer files if the retail price
of CDs were not so high.

It is OK to burn a "mix CD" of your 0.782 0.436
favorite tunes to give to a friend.

I resent the anti-copying features 1.334 0.185
some record labels have started
putting on their CDs.