College Students, Piracy, and Ethics: Is there a Teachable Moment?

This study explores the nature of piracy prevention tools used by IT departments in the Florida State University System to determine their relative effectiveness. The study also examines the opinions of the Information Security Officer in terms of alternative piracy prevention techniques that do not involve legal action and monitoring. It was found that most institutions do not use a formal piece of software that monitors for infringing data. Furthermore, institutions agreed that students lack proper ethics and concern over the matter of copyright, but were not fully convinced that other prevention methods would be effective. The authors conclude that monitoring techniques are a short-term solution and more research must put into finding long-term solutions.