Why do Good People Steal Intellectual Property?

Abstract

Why do good people steal intellectual property? You know who we mean. The person (perhaps even yourself) who feels deep remorse if she mistakenly walks off with your pencil, who takes a wallet she found on the street, full of money but with no identification, to the police, and who without a qualm or any thought of payment, downloads copyrighted music off the internet or from a friend to put onto her iPod. What is going on here? Some suggest ignorance of the law, but that is generally not the case. She knows about copyright. Some suggest a lack of enforcement, but that doesn’t stop her from turning in the wallet. No, something else is going on - some failure of a normally law-abiding, “good” person to feel any compulsion to obey this set of laws....