The Relationship Between General

Ethical Judgments and Copying

Behavior at Work

ABSTRACT. Electronic technologies, in general, and

computer-oriented technologies specifically have had a
tremendous impact on all aspects of business. One area of
increased concern is the protection of intellectual properties - notably copyrights - within the boundaries of the
broadly defmed technology industry. While the abihty to
share copyrighted information has always existed at the
most basic levels, the advent of the information age has
allowed the sharing of this information to take place in
potentially greater quantities and without a loss of quality.
As such, copying creates a major threat to industries
Tracy A. Suter is an assistant professor in the Department of
Marketing at Oklahoma State University. Professor Suter's
research has focused on intellectual property and online public
policy issues. His articles have appeared in such outlets as the

Journal of Public PoHcy & Marketing, the Journal of

Business Research, and Psychology and Marketing
among others. He has taught a variety of courses with most
recent emphasis on Marketing Research and Electronic
Commerce.
Steven W. Kopp is an associate professor in the Department of
Marketing & Lx>gistics in the Walton College of Business,
University of Arkansas. Dr. Kopp's research has focused
primarily on intellectual property issues and prescription drug
advertising. His recent articles are published in f/je Journal of

Public Policy & Marketing, Health Marketing Quarterly, and the Journal of Macromarketing.
Professor David Hardesty has been an Assistant Professor of
Marketing at the University of Miamifor the past three years.
Before that, he held a faculty position at the University of
Southern Mississippi for three years. Professor Hardesty's
research focuses on consumer responses and public policy issues
related to pricing and promotion as well as measurement. He
has published in outlets such as the Journal of Consumer

Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Public

Policy & Marketing, Journal of Advertising, and the
Journal of Business Research among others. He currently
teaches Marketing Research and Consumer Behavior in the
MBA program.

^^
r*

Tracy A. Suter
Steven W. Kopp
David M. Hardesty

dealing in the production and distribution of copyrightable creations. The focus of this paper is to better
understand how the ethical judgments of employees
regarding the opportunities to recreate copyrighted works
via traditional and newer technologies impact assessments
of copying behavior in the workplace.
KEY WORDS: copyright, ethical judgments, intellectual property, Internet, public policy

Recent events have brought much attention to the

relationship between intellectual property protection
and the uses of technological innovations by
employees at work. Perhaps the most notorious
situation has been that involving Napster, a filetrading program that allowed some 40 million users
to freely share digitized songs with one another over
the Internet. Several places of work, including universities (Lubell, 2003) and government offices
(Jordan, 2000), initiated various measures to prohibit
or discourage the downloading of files; employers
found that downloading large files slowed down
servers or that they could be held liable for participating in copyright infringement. Employees have
used many duplication-related technologies across
the technological spectrum for unauthorized copying in the course of their work or non-work activities for decades (e.g., American Geophysical Union
V. Texaco, 1992; Lee, 2001; Pasha Publications v.
Enmark, 1992; Towle v. Ross et al., 1940; Universal
City Studios v. Reimerdes, 2001). Most recently, a
federal court ordered an employer to pay almost $20
million for unauthorized photo- and electronic
copying of a financial newsletter (Lowry's Reports v.
Legg Mason, 2004). Obviously, the consequences to
the employer can be quite serious (EvangeHsta,
2002).

Journal of Business Ethics 55: 61-70, 2004.

2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

62

Tracy A. Suter et al.

Losses from piracy of copyright-protected materials are well into the biUions of dollars (Business
Software Alliance, 2003; Recording Industry Association of America, 1999; Wall Street Journal, 1998).
A significant proportion of this unauthorized copying
takes place at work (Clabum, 2001). Court cases have
dealt with use of photocopiers (American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, 1992; Pasha Pubhcations v.
Enmark, 1992), databases (Rural Telephone v. Feist,
1991), and software (Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes, 2001). It is estimated that nearly 23% of the
software in use during 2002 was unlicensed and cost
$6 billion in lost retail sales (Business Software Alliance, 2003). Pubhshers of newsletters lose between
25 and 40% of their potential revenue to unauthorized photocopying. Because some types of copying
may actually be encouraged by the employer, for
example, making unauthorized copies of software on
multiple computers in an office, it is perhaps
impossible to determine what amount of copying
that is sanctioned by employers and what amount is
illicit. However, because of the reach and ease of
using the Internet and other technologies for copying
and distribution, this problem will not go away in the
near future. Further, this issue has global dimensions
(Newspaper Licensing Agency v. Marks and Spencer,
2001; Wall v. Brunell, 1997).
Of course, copy-capable technologies only provide the means by which individuals may make
copies, and that copying, regardless of the technology, is a type of individual behavior. This issue has
become one of ethical management. In a survey
among technology workers, one-third reported that
they had seen a coworker make copies of software for
personal use; 9% of those technology workers reported making copies themselves (Society of Financial Service Professionals, 2001). In this same survey,
software copying was one of the most fi^equent
practices of "heavy abusers". Because of the proliferation of computers and computer networks, as well
as the convergence of computer and communications
technology, illegal reproduction and distribution of
copyrighted software and other intellectual property
is easier than ever. So, it is highly relevant to investigate any relationship between an individual's ethical
or moral philosophy, the individual's beliefs about
copying intellectual property, and that individual's
participation in ethically questionable activities with
respect to two groups of technological alternatives.

This study was designed to examine how certain

beliefs may be related to judgments regarding
copying behavior in the workplace. More specifically, the purpose of this study was to explore how
beliefs about ethical behavioral intentions are related
to copying behaviors with respect to specific technologies. For the purposes of this study, technologies
available for copying software, music, movies,
books, etc., will be two different, but related, groups
(traditional and newer copying technologies).

Background
Legal issues

In essence, any interference with the copyright

owner's rights may constitute copyright infringement, including copying all or a substantial part of a
work under the 1976 Copyright Act. Whether a
portion of a work is "substantial" is a subjective
question, which includes consideration of both the
quantity and quality of the portion. While the ability
to share information has always existed at the most
basic levels, the advent of the information age has
allowed the sharing of this information to take place
without a loss of quality. For instance, piracy of audio
recordings has been a concern for the recording
industry since the advent of personal home audio
devices. However, the threat is far less troublesome
when the copy is of noticeably lower quality than the
original. So, while individuals have been able to
rephcate LPs and audiocassettes for a number of
years, the loss of quality inherent in the copy has, in
some respects, reduced the significance of this threat.
In contrast, the arrival of digital technology allows
for the opportunity that the original and the copy are
of virtually identical quality. In other words, the loss
of quality is either not present or below the level of
noticeable difference. As such, copying digital
sounds, images, software, etc., has created a major
threat to a variety of industries dealing in the production and distribution of these intellectual properties because the quality is so high. It has also
become exceedingly clear in recent years, if a firm
cannot control the distribution of its intellectual
property, it cannot control the flow of revenues.
These scenarios are magnified exponentially when
the interrelatedness and connectivity of the Internet

Copying Behavior at Work

is considered. With a network of interlinked computers, the sharers of copyrightable works need not
be in the same geographic space, do not have the
necessity of exchanging the "original" diskettes,
CD-ROMs, etc., and do not have a limit on the
number of copies that can be made. Said another
way, the copying of digital works can be "substantial" in terms of both quantity and quality within
the networked technologies of the Internet. It is this
distinction that dictated the groupings of traditional
and newer technologies for the purpose of this study.
Traditional technologies characteristically exhibit
copies from the original that are lower in quality and
have a limited quantity of copies that can be produced. Newer technologies, in contrast, maximize
both quality and quantity via the digital nature of the
copies and the lack of necessity to be in the same
geographic space to share the originals.
The importance of the latter issue led to the
passage of the first Internet-specific intellectual
property legislation when in December 1997 the No
Electronic Theft (NET) Act was signed into effect.
This law was aimed specifically at stopping electronic copyright violations by making the willful
violation of copyright a criminal offense, even if no
profit to the infringed is involved. In addition to the
NET Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA) was enacted in 1998. The intent of the
DMCA was, among other objectives, to harmonize
U.S. copyright law with international law, make it
unlawful to defeat technological protections used by
copyright owners to protect their works, and
establish safe harbors for on-line service providers
who unknowingly transmit copyrighted works.
Both the NET Act and the DMCA were attempts to
help somewhat antiquated federal statutes wdth
contemporary technologies and behaviors.

Organizational issues

The costs of this copying behavior are extremely high

for several reasons. Direct costs would include the
direct copying (called "softHfting", in the case of
software) of organizational property and the time taken by the employee to do the copying. Indirect costs
are potentially much larger, since employers are
generally responsible for the actions of their employees (Sterling, 2004). Copyright law imposes "strict

63

liability" for violation of the five traditional copyright

rights: reproduction, distribution, modification,
public performance and public display. This liability is
described as "strict" because the copyright owner can
receive both injunctive rehef and monetary damages,
whether the person violating such rights did so
intentionally or accidentally. Copyright law also imposes vicarious or contributory liability for the actions
of third parties under certain circumstances. The
Business Software Alliance routinely audits companies
that are suspected of violating copyrights, and can seek
$ 150,000 per unlicensed copy. Similarly, publishers of
other types of copyrightable materials, such as research
journals or newsletters, have been able to enforce their
copyrights when employees violate them. So, even
though it may seem prosaic, organizations that rely on
their photocopiers must realize that while copyright
compliance may not be cheap, copyright infringement liability can be ruinous.

Ethics research issues

Copying behavior has been tangentially included in

ethics research and mostly limited to issues involving
information technology. A study by Wilkes (1978)
was one of the initial investigations of personal
judgments concerning how "wrong" certain activities are. Later, Vitell and Muncy (1991) established a
four-dimensional set of general ethical situations that
consumers viewed at different levels of ethicality.
Vitell et al. (1991) used Forsyth's (1980) Ethical
Position Questionnaire (EPQ) and Vitell and Muncy's (1991) consumer ethics items to test relationships
between an individual's preferred moral philosophy
and believed ethicalness of various questionable
practices. The EPQ measured moral philosophies on
two dimensions: idealism and relativism. Idealism
was one's acceptance of moral absolutes; relativism
was the rejection of universal moral principles.
According to Forsyth (1980), those scoring high on
idealism generally believe that morally "right"
behavior leads to positive consequences, while those
scoring high on relativism tend to reject the notion
that absolute moral principles exist. Vitell et al.'s
(1991) results indicate that one's philosophy is a
significant determinant of one's ethical beliefs in the
marketplace; Rawwas et al. (1995) extended these
findings in a cross-cultural context.

Tracy A. Suter et al.

64
Hypothesis development
Traditional copying technologies

Jones (1990) described and tested the acceptability of

10 workplace behaviors of a questionable ethical
nature including such issues as "Making personal
copies on a company copy machine". His test consisted of asking undergraduate students to assume
different situational contexts (i.e., from the perspective of the company president or a lower-level employee). Results showed that making copies on the
company machine was one of the more unacceptable
activities presented, especially for those in the
"presidential" context. Mudrack (1993) assessed
these same 10 items across two studies and concluded
that they were generally viewed as more unacceptable than acceptable and without a connection to
actual managerial status. While neither Jones (1990)
nor Mudrack (1993) specifically assessed the acceptability of copying materials using audiocassette
recorders or VCRs within the workplace, we have
grouped these technologies due to the possibility that
each can produce a high quality copy but not a copy
that is indistinguishable from the original. Given this
commonality, we offer similar hypotheses for all
three of these traditional copying technologies.
HI: An individual's stated beliefs of ethically
questionable behaviors are negatively related
to the likelihood of using a photocopy machine unethically.
H2: An individual's stated beliefs of ethically
questionable behaviors are negatively related
to the likelihood of using an audiocassette
recorder unethically.
H3: An individual's stated beliefs of ethically
questionable behaviors are negatively related
to the likelihood of using a videocassette
recorder unethically.

Newer copying technologies

In an Internet user survey (GVU 10th WWW User

Survey, 1998), nearly 29% of respondents reported
using the Web between 21 and 40 hours per week at
work. This result supported the targeting of our
study of ethics and copying behavior on the work-

place Internet user. Little is known about whether

the relationship between the assessment of ethically
questionable behaviors and unethical copying
behavior. For instance, given the increased ease of
transfer and potential anonymity in copying digital
works, would an individual be willing to freely copy
computer software and download pirated music
from the Internet and World Wide Web? We predict that if an individual determines a broad, general
behavior to be ethically questionable, s/he would
feel the same about a specific practice such as
downloading digital works from the Internet or
copying computer software. This conclusion leads to
the follovwng hypotheses:
H4: An individual's stated beliefs of ethically
questionable behaviors are negatively related
to the hkelihood of copying materials from
Internet/Web sites unethically.
H5: An individual's stated beliefs of ethically
questionable behaviors are negatively related
to the hkelihood of copying software
unethically.

Research methods
The hypotheses were tested using data gathered from
non-student adults who filled out a questionnaire
that included multiple indicators for each latent
construct of interest. The questionnaire was distributed to approximately 600 members of a statew^ide household research panel. Two hundred
ninety-seven surveys were returned resulting in a
response rate of approximately 49.5%. To begin,
Vitell and Muncy's (1991) four dimensional ethical
assessment items were measured. Next, participants
responded to measures of the ethical implications
associated with their work-based activities of photocopying a book instead of buying it, copying a
compact disk to a cassette using an audio cassette
player/recorder instead of purchasing it, copying a
movie using a VCR instead of buying it, copying
computer software, and dow^nloading information
from the Web instead of purchasing it. At the end of
the survey, respondents indicated their gender, age,
income, and other demographic variables. Finally,
subjects were asked to indicate what they believed

Copying Behavior at Work

was the purpose of the study; none of the respondents were able to determine the purpose of the
research. The median household income for the
sample was between $30,000 and $39,999. Sixtythree percent of the sample was female with an
average age of 38.

65

books, copying a compact disk using an audiocassette recorder, and copying a movie using a videocassette recorder at work. These three dependent
variables were measured as the average of three items
on a four-point scale such as, "It is ethical to copy
pages from a book instead of buying it ... Never (1)
- Rarely (2) - Sometimes (3) - Often (4)", "It is
ethical to copy a compact disk to a cassette instead of
buying it ... Never (1) - Rarely (2) - Sometimes (3)
- Often (4)", and "It is ethical to copy movies because no one is harmed ... Never (1) - Rarely (2) Sometimes (3) - Often (4)".
The ethical implications associated with downloading infonnation from the Intemet at work instead of buying it as well as copying software served as
the dependent variables in assessing hypotheses four
and five. Each of these variables was assessed as the
average of three items measured on a four-point scale
such as, "It is ethical to download infonnation from a
Web site or newsgroup instead of buying the information... Never (1) - Rarely (2) - Sometimes (3) Often (4)" and "It is ethical to copy software instead
of buying it... Never (1) - Rarely (2) - Sometimes
(3) - Often (4)". As summarized in Table I, coefficient alpha estimates of intemal consistency reliability
for each multi-item measure were as follows: 0.94,
actively benefiting from illegal activity; 0.90, passively benefiting at the expense of others; 0.85, actively benefiting from questionable actions; 0.80, no
harm, no foul; 0.75, photocopying behavior; 0.86,
audio cassette copying behavior; 0.80, video cassette
copying behavior; 0.87, Intemet copying behavior;
and 0.88, software copying behavior. Each of these

Measures

The four dimensions of beliefs regarding ethically

questionable behaviors - actively benefiting from
illegal activity, passively benefiting at the expense of
others, actively benefiting from questionable actions,
and no harm, no foul were measured using sevenpoint scaled items anchored by "Definitely Believe it
is Not Wrong (1) to Definitely Believe it is Wrong
(7) (Vitell and Muncy, 1991). The first dimension,
actively benefiting from illegal activity was measured
by the average of five items Hke, "Drinking a can of
soda in a super market without paying for it". Passively benefiting at the expense of others was measured as the average of four items such as, "Not
saying anything when the waitress miscalculates your
bill". Actively benefiting from questionable actions
was assessed using the average response to four
statements similar to the following: "Stretching the
truth on an income tax retum". Lastly, no harm, no
foul was measured as the average score across five
items. For example, one item was: "Recording a
compact disk instead of buying it".
Hypotheses one, two, and three assessed the
ethical implications associated with photocopying

TABLE I
Number of items, variable means, standard deviations, and reliabilities
Variable
Actively benefiting from Ulegal activity
Passively benefiting at the expense of others
Actively benefiting from questionable actions
No harm, no foul
Photocopying behavior
Audiocassette copying behavior
Videocassette copying behavior
Internet copying behavior
Software copying behavior

Number of items
5
4
4
5
3
3
3
3
3

Mean
6.84
6.39
6.17
3.47
2.50
1.52
1.67
2.32
2.16

Standard deviation
0.58
1.03
1.15
1.54
0.89
0.77
0.88
1.23
0.94

Alpha
0.94
0.90
0.85
0.80
0.75
0.86
0.80
0.87
0.88

66

Tracy A. Suter et al

internal consistency reliability estimates are above the

recommended level suggested by Nunnally (1974).

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Results

Hypothesis 1 predicted that an individual's assessments of ethically questionable behaviors are negatively related to the likelihood of photocopying
materials from books. As shown in Table II, the
standardized beta coefficients associated with these
relationships were -0.122 {p < 0.10, actively benefiting from illegal activity), -0.256 {p < 0.01,
passively benefiting at the expense of others), -0.268
(p < 0.01, actively benefiting from questionable
actions), and -0.311 {p < 0.01, no harm, no foul).
These results support hypothesis 1. Interestingly, the
results for actively benefiting from illegal activity
suggest a weaker relationship compared to the other
three dimensions. It is also interesting to note that
subjects ranked photocopying behavior as the most
ethical of the five studied copying technologies
(mean = 2.50, see Table I).
Hypothesis 2 predicted that an individual's
assessments of ethically questionable behaviors are
negatively related to the likelihood of copying
compact disks using an audiocassette player/recorder. The standardized beta coefficients associated
with these relationships were -0.069 {p > 0.10,
actively benefiting firom illegal activity), -0.054
{p > 0.10, passively benefiting at the expense of
others), -0.069 (p > 0.10, actively benefiting from
questionable actions), and -0.102 {p > 0.10, no
harm, no foul). These results fail to support
hypothesis 2. Thus, there appears to be no relationship between audiocassette copying behavior
and assessments of more general ethically questionable behaviors.
Hypothesis 3 predicted that an individual's
assessments of ethically questionable behaviors are
negatively related to the likelihood of copying
movies using a videocassette recorder (VCR). The
standardized beta coefficients associated with these
relationships were -0.009 (p > 0.10, actively benefiting from illegal activity), 0.048 (p > 0.10, passively benefiting at the expense of others), -0.058
{p > 0.10, actively benefiting from questionable
actions), and -0.109 {p > 0.10, no harm, no foul).
These results fail to support hypothesis 3. Similar to

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Copying Behavior at Work

hypothesis 2, there does not appear to he a relationship hetween videocassette recording and
assessments of more general ethically questionable
behaviors.
Hypothesis 4 was evaluated using simple linear
regression with ethical behavioral assessments serving as the independent variable and Internet copying behavior as the dependent variable. Recall that
this fourth hypothesis predicted that an individual's
ethical behavioral assessments would be negatively
correlated to Internet copying behavior. In partial
support of this prediction, the standardized beta
coefficients for these analyses were -0.091
{p > 0.10, actively benefiting from illegal activity),
-0.132 {p < 0.10 one-tailed, passively benefiting at
the expense of others), -0.244 {p < 0.01, actively
benefiting from questionable actions), and 0.202
{p < 0.05, no harm, no foul). Finally, hypothesis 5
was evaluated in a similar fashion with ethical
behavioral assessments serving as the independent
variable and software copying behavior as the
dependent variable. The standardized beta coefficients were -0.065 {p > 0.10, actively benefiting
from illegal activity), -0.116 {p > 0.10, passively
benefiting at the expense of others), 0.183
(p < 0.05, actively benefiting from questionable
actions), and 0.303 {p < 0.01, no harm, no foul),
which partially supports the fifth hypothesis. As
with hypothesis 1, the results for actively benefiting
from illegal activity suggest a weaker relationship
compared to the other three dimensions in the
context of both Internet and software copying
behavior.
Overall, stated beliefs of general ethically questionable behaviors, including behaviors believed to
be illegal, served as a good predictor of photocopying behavior. Additionally, Internet and software copying behavior can be predicted by a subset
of ethically questionable behaviors. More specifically, the strongest relationships to Internet and
software copying behaviors were witnessed in
conjunction with the "actively benefiting from
questionable actions" and "no harm, no foul"
ethically questionable behavioral dimensions. These
results could signal that respondents do not recognize the legal boundaries of copyrighted works in
the context of newer technologies. The implications of these results will be discussed in the next
section.

67

Discussion
Ethics research issues

This study provides evidence that supports the

existence of a relationship between a traditional
copying technology (i.e., photocopier) as well as
newer copying technologies (i.e., Internet and software) and stated beliefs regarding questionable
behaviors. Further, these broad behavioral principles, which have been deemed representative of a
reasonable sample of the domain of ethical situations
(Muncy and Vitell, 1992), were developed before
the Internet and World Wide Web's emergence.
Therefore, demonstrating a statistically significant
relationship between general activities, traditionally
unacceptable workplace activities, and Internet- and
technology-specific activities is an important contribution to ethical and organizational behavior
knowledge. Finally, given that the photocopier
relationships exist as predicted, and that the Internet
and software copying behaviors were viewed as
questionable yet not illegal, it is important for public
policy makers to continue to work to protect
intellectual property owners, especially holders of
copyrights, and for those same owners to continue to
protect themselves. Organizational ethics research
has considered other individual traits (Banerjee et al.,
1998; Kuo and Hsu, 2001; Pierce and Henry, 2000)
as they influence ethical decisions within an information technology framework. The present study
suggests that stated beliefs regarding ethical behaviors
have influence across technologies as well.
It is possible that the employees surveyed are
naive to the legal boundaries surrounding copyright
law. This is a distinct possibility since workers
positioned copying in the Internet and software
contexts as questionable actions and not illegal
activities. Thus, there is an avenue to educate
workers as to the legal boundaries of copyright law
assuming they lack knowledge on the topic (Porter
and Griffaton, 2003). The fact that we did not
measure their understanding of copyright law is a
limitation of the current research.
As for the two hypotheses not supported (H2 and
H3), it is possible that copying compact diskettes and
videotaped movies might be more home-based than
workplace-specific activities, but we are unable to
support this alternative w^ith the current data.

68

Tracy A. Suter et al.

Another consideration for the lack of support for

these hypotheses is that subjects ranked these two
activities as the least ethical (mean = 1.52 and 1.67,
audiocassette and videocassette, respectively). Future
researchers should consider such behaviors within
the home as well. Moreover, future researchers
should also consider the role of newer home-based
technologies (e.g., copying of DVDs) as they become more commonplace. Additionally, although
no differences between the four ethical judgment
dimensions were hypothesized, the data suggest that
actively benefiting from illegal activity had the
weakest relationships across traditional and newer
copying behaviors.
Organizational research issues

As mentioned earlier, an employer is strictly liable

for the copyright infringements of its employees.
The increased use of temporary workers, independent contractors, and telecommuters has significantly
comphcated issues of copyright. These employment
practices are blurring the boundaries between work
and home Ufe, and could put their employers at risk
of a range of copyright infringement charges. Courts
and managers will have to struggle w^ith decisions as
to whether at-home employees operate autonomously or within the scope of their employer,
whether an employer's electronic bulletin board is
equivalent to an Internet service provider, and
whether "work for hire" copyright doctrine comes
w^ith "work for hire" liabilities. In addition, these
organizational decisions will be influenced by employee privacy considerations, and the mercurial
pace of technological change add other layers of
concern with regard to enforcement (Mroz, 2002).
Legal research issues

This research offers several ethical and public policy

imphcations and contributions. From a pubhc policy
standpoint, new legislation such as the No Electronic
Theft and the Digital Millennium Copyright Acts
has made significant strides toward the consideration
of intellectual property protection within newer
technology environments. However, some public
policy makers believe more needs to be done.
Congress passed another significant piece of legisla-

tion with copyright protection as the focus. The

Digital Theft Deterrence and. Copyright Damages
Improvement Act (1999) essentially increased minimum and maximum statutory damages by 50% for
copyright infringement. In cases where the copyright owner proves that an infringement was committed "willfully", courts have been given the
discretion to award as much as $150,000 in statutory
damages. In practice, if one can prove someone else
willfully copied an original creation, they can collect
statutory damages without having to prove any actual
damage. This is an important piece of legislation
within the information technology domain because
proving willful copying may be easier than proving
the extent of damage. In other words, showing that
copies have been willfully made could be less challenging for the original creator of the work than
showing how many copies have been made.
One further challenge that will continue to exist is
the enforcement of such legislation. The expansive
reach of the Web may increase the chances of an
infhnger being caught. An alternative possibility is
that the vast reach of the Web may make it more
difficult to systematically enforce rules, as they may
vary across geographies, or as there may be difficulty
in measuring or defining some of the "fair use"
elements as they would pertain to a truly globally
available marketplace.

Conclusion

The philosophy of freedom and availability of

information use and dissemination are driving forces
in the development of copying technologies.
However, restrictions on the distribution of that
information, in the form of copyrights, seem to fly in
the face of this philosophy. Technological barriers
(e.g., watermarking), as well as public policy constraints, to copying of materials traditionally and
with developing technologies are only viable until
some means is developed by potential pirates to
circumvent these constraints.
In sum, the current state of copyright policy,
specifically in regard to computer-mediated environments, has left public policy makers dealing with
intellectual property rights in an uncomfortable
juxtaposition. On the one hand, copyright holders
have the right for protection. Companies producing

Copying Behavior at Work

music, multimedia, and software should be the

financial and other beneficiaries of its products.
Alternatively, technological innovations are built on
the basis of free sharing of information. Public policy
makers, with insight from academics and practitioners, must continue to develop the appropriate balance for all interested parties. The current study has
attempted to provide such insights by demonstrating
that a relationship exists between a broad base of
ethically questionable actions from the general marketplace and ethically questionable actions specific to
both traditional and newly developed technologies.

69

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Tracy A. Suter
Oklahoma State University,
700 North Greenwood Avenue,
Tulsa, OK 74106,
U.S.A.
E-mail: tracy.suter@okstate.edu

Steven W. Kopp
Walton College of Business,
University of Arkansas,
Fayetteville, AR 72701,
U.S.A.
E-mail: skopp@waUon.uark.edu
David M. Hardesty
University of Miami,
523D Jenkins Building,
Coral Gables, FL 33124,
U.S.A.
E-mail: hardesty@miami.edu