Software piracy among computing students: a Bruneian scenario

Software piracy committed by university students in the western world has b een published widely in various computer literature. Little is reported how ever about why and what proportion of students, particularly computing stud ents, in a South East Asian Country like Brunei Darussalam, use pirated sof tware. A survey was thus conducted among the computing students of all the higher educational institutions in Brunei Darussalam. A normative model was also developed that brought together eight factors related to student demo graphy, nature of educational institutions and copyright laws. This model w as empirically tested using 91 responses received from the survey. Several interesting findings emerged. Firstly, nearly two-thirds of the students ad mitted to having used pirated software. Secondly, entertainment was the pro minent reason for using pirated software. Thirdly, gender, computer experie nce and ownership of a personal computer, were found to affect students' us e of pirated software. Fourthly, even those students who supported the intr oduction of copyright laws committed software piracy. The implications of t hese findings are discussed, and are compared with some related studies. Fi nally, limitations of the study are mentioned, and areas of further researc h are identified. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.