Abstract:

Digital  piracy  of  software,  songs,  movies,  or  e-books  happens  every  day.  It  destroys  the  growth  of  digital product  industries.  Youths  are  main  consumers  of  those  digital  products  but  they  are  likely  to  have  fewer resources to buy products. Thus, this research studies the influence of their morals/ ethics and their excuses in terms of neutralization on youths’ pirating behavior. Pirating behavior of each digital product in two levels of restrictions: downloading and keeping, and downloading and sharing to others are explored. Findings indicate that personal ethics can decrease the pirated behavior of software, songs, and movie at the first phase of piracy, however youths will apply some neutralization techniques to support their superior aberrant behavior later.