54 Trends in Organized Crime/Voi. 8, No.

4, Summer 2005

on this variable to examine the influence of peers on an individual's self-reported

pirating behavior. For example, using a sample of college students, Hollinger (1993)
examined two types of computer crime, giving or receiving pirated computer software
and accessing another's computer account or files without the owner's knowledge
or permission. He found that friends' involvement in piracy was strongly corre-
lated with self-reported computer crime. More specifically, only two percent of the
sample was likely to engage in computer crime when they reported that their best
friends were not likely to engage in computer crime. However, almost 40 percent
of the sample admitted to engaging in computer crime when they reported that
more than half of their best friends engage in the same behavior.
Skinner and Fream (1997) conduct a direct test of social learning theory using a
sample of undergraduate students who reported their involvement in five types of
computer crime: software piracy, guessing a password to gain unauthorized access,
gaining unauthorized access for the purpose of browsing, gaining unauthorized
access for the purpose of changing information, and wrote or used a program that
would destroy someone's computerized data (i.e., creating a computer virus). They
found that associating with peers who participate in computer crime was the stron-
gest predictor of their computer crime index (which was created by summing the
frequency measure that asked students how often in the past year they committed
each of the five computer crimes). In addition, they found that the source of imita-
tion is learned not only from peer groups, but from a variety of sources including
parents, siblings, teachers, and virtual peer groups or computer bulletin boards
where interaction occurs electronically.

Prevention of Intellectual Property Theft

One of the primary reasons we attempt to understand the causes and correlates
of criminal behavior is so that we are able to develop intervention and prevention
efforts designed to control the behavior. Strategies to control behavior can be re-
garded as either primarily focusing on preventive behaviors (front-end strategies)
or as deterrents (backdoor strategies), and even further some strategies do not sim-
ply attempt to make the offense "harder" or less rewarding, but to reduce or elimi-
nate opportunity. Preventive controls are designed to make criminal activities harder
or less rewarding for perpetrators by increasing the costs of engaging in the crimi-
nal act (Gopal and Sanders, 1997). Deterrent controls, on the other hand, intend to
avoid criminal activities altogether by dissuading the users from even considering
engaging in the act (Gopal and Sanders, 1997). A variety of different prevention
techniques have been employed in order to prevent the theft of intellectual prop-
erty rights but these efforts have primarily been designed on an ad hoc basis.
One of the most common prevention strategies employed is to use technological
advances to increase the costs of engaging in piracy. These anti-piracy technolo-
gies include strategies such as using encryption technology to make it harder for
pirates to intercept the information while it is being transmitted, the use of special
Intellectual Property Crime 55

codes that would only allow access to the authorized owner, offering customer
support to only the legal owner, and using hardware locks. Each technological
advancement is designed to try and stay one step ahead of the pirates in order to
dissuade them from engaging in piracy. The problem with this type of strategy is
that some may find the challenge of breaking the new protective barrier as a re-
warding experience rather than a hindrance to pirating (Sims et al., 1996). Another
approach that also utilizes technological advancements is to use the technology to
give the public what it wants. In other words, rather than trying to fight the use of
new advances in technology some companies are finding ways to use the technol-
ogy in their favor. For example, the prolific Internet source, Napster, drew much
attention for the illegal downloading and sharing of copyrighted music. Napster
provided a peer-to-peer file sharing service that allowed individuals to post and
download music through the transmission of MP3 music files without legally pur-
chasing the songs. Record companies along with artists fought hard and won the
battle to shut down the illegal Napster service but recognized the potential of peer-
to-peer file sharing services (AandM et al. v. Napster; Metallica v. Napster). New
legal music services are now available that allow individuals to download their
favorite music for either a one-time download fee (e.g., iTunes) or as a monthly
service (e.g., Napster).
Since many students reported not knowing intellectual property laws (see
Christensen and Eining, 1991), roughly 50 percent had indicated they had read the
licensing agreement that appears on most copyrighted software programs, another
deterrent strategy, educating the public, may be warranted. (Note: Still, it remains
unknown if 100 percent read these agreements--i.e., were knowledgeable about
the legal rights of copyright holders--patterns of behavior would change.) One
such method that is being used is a public educational campaign. The MPAA con-
tinues to engage in this effort in order to teach the public that movie piracy is
illegal, to explain how it impacts the economy and impacts the jobs of many people
who work in the motion picture industry. The current phase of the educational
program is designed to target daily newspapers, consumer magazines, college news-
papers, as well as anti-piracy messages appearing in local theaters to help inform
the public about the negative consequences of pirating behavior. Other industries,
such as the software industry, maintain anti-piracy speaker bureaus and distribute
informational videos to their consumers how their goods should and should not be
used (Luckenbill and Miller, 1998). Finally, educators are also advocating for the
inclusion of ethical components into courses in order to educate students about the
proper uses of intellectual property (Simpson et al., 1994).
Industries have also created or hired units, such as trade associations, to look
after and protect their property. For example, the MPAA has it's own security of-
fice to aid in the fight against film piracy (Luckenbill and Miller, 1998). The duties
of the MPAA security office include setting up hotlines that allow them to receive
tips or reports of pirating behavior, tracking the process of cases as they move
through our legal system, and keeping records (Luckenbill and Miller, 1998). In
56 Trends in Organized Crime/Voi. 8, No. 4, Summer 2005

addition to these private policing responsibilities, trade associations also allow the
industry to have a collective voice and more resources to help mobilize legal re-
sources against the pirating behavior. Trade associations can lobby for the interest
of the industry as a whole and in some instances have proven to be quite success-
ful. For example, the U.S. Senate Bill 893 (effective October 28, 1992) was created
as a response to the pressure of the software industry and increased the penalties
for copyright infringement (Cheng et al., 1997: 50).
The last strategy used to try and control the theft of intellectual property is by
means of lawsuits (both civil and criminal) and legal statutes in order to deter
pirating behavior. Enlisting the help of the government by means of legislative
action is an avenue that is being aggressively pursued. Many trade associations
have not only fought to get laws passed that prohibit the theft of intellectual prop-
erty rights but have also filed their own lawsuits against individuals. Many crimi-
nal statutes against theft of intellectual property are currently on the books with
many of the laws specific to certain forms of intellectual property. For example,
the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 makes the theft of trade secrets a federal
crime while the Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984 criminalizes the trafficking
of counterfeit goods and services (Maher and Thompson, 2002).
Unfortunately, while each of these strategies in isolation has been well docu-
mented and implemented in a number of arenas, there have been no outcome evalu-
ation efforts that have examined the effectiveness of each of the interventions. In
addition, we know almost nothing about the changes in intellectual property viola-
tions (both by amount and type) that have occurred in response to these prevention
and intervention efforts. This is unfortunate since many of these efforts are costly
in terms of both time and financial resources that are needed for proper implemen-
tation. A clear understanding of the impact of these efforts on intellectual property
violations is imperative to help guide public policies designed to combat piracy
and protect the rights of intellectual property owners.

Agenda for Future Research

As has been made clear, the current state of knowledge regarding the nature and
prevalence of intellectual property theft is scant. A three-pronged research effort is
suggested that may be ambitious--but always relevant in helping to begin to fill
some of the gaps that remain in the knowledge base regarding the theft of intellec-
tual property rights. These three priorities surround data collection efforts, theo-
retical tests, and cataloging and evaluating the knowledge base regarding the effects
of policy efforts.
First, just as the U.S. Bureau of Census together with the Bureau of Justice
Statistics conducts a nationwide survey of crime victims, efforts must be devel-
oped to initiate a nationwide data collection effort that targets information regard-
ing the prevalence of intellectual property theft with special attention made to include