Software piracy among computing students: a Bruneian scenario

Software piracy committed by university students in the western world has been published widely in various computer literature. Little is reported however about why and what proportion of students, particularly computing students, in a South East Asian Country like Brunei Darussalam, use pirated software. 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 demography, nature of educational institutions and copyright laws. This model was empirically tested using 91 responses received from the survey. Several interesting findings emerged. Firstly, nearly two-thirds of the students admitted to having used pirated software. Secondly, entertainment was the prominent reason for using pirated software. Thirdly, gender, computer experience and ownership of a personal computer, were found to affect students' use of pirated software. Fourthly, even those students who supported the introduction of copyright laws committed software piracy. The implications of these findings are discussed, and are compared with some related studies. Finally, limitations of the study are mentioned, and areas of further research are identified.