Author(s): Joaquim, Bernardo Filipe Geadas
Date: 2017
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/19889
Origin: Repositório Institucional da UNL
Subject(s): Digital Piracy; TV-Shows; Online Video Bundling Services; Technology Acceptance Model
Author(s): Joaquim, Bernardo Filipe Geadas
Date: 2017
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/19889
Origin: Repositório Institucional da UNL
Subject(s): Digital Piracy; TV-Shows; Online Video Bundling Services; Technology Acceptance Model
Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies Management
The availability of digital channels that allow the distribution of copyrighted material has raised several questions over the last few years. With several different media and entertainment companies claiming lost profits due to digital piracy, this master thesis was created to deliberate whether companies have a right to feel damaged by illegal activities related with their content, more specifically TV-shows, the motives leading to this behavior, and if this influences the subscription of online video bundling services such as Netflix for people who access this content illegally via for example Torrent communities. We address these questions by gathering information from various legitimate sources regarding current TV-show business models (Mirrlees 2013) (Masouras 2015), the way pirates’ access and visualize copyrighted content and by inquiring said pirates about their purchase intentions regarding services like Netflix. In order to do this, an online survey was created and shared on social media as well as in popular torrent websites, targeting people that incur or had incurred in illegal downloading of video content. We use a variation of the popular Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to gather the data regarding pirates’ intentions of subscribing an online video bundling service. While some of the chosen variables revealed themselves to be non-significant contrary to what was firstly believed, we were able to identify Perceived Convenience, Price, Perceived Value and Morals and Ethics as the most influential factors that users contemplate when considering adopting an online video bundling service. This master thesis is therefore an addition to the current academic literature that depicts media consumption when users have an illegal free option to choose from. Adding the fact that this research focus specifically in the TV-Show industry ( something that has been majorly overlooked so far), we hope that the studios and related media personnel will understand what is actually valued by these type of consumers so that in the future they can offer higher value in order to capture these potential customers.