The growth of digital modes of communication, commerce, and social networking has facilitated the emergence of new forms of behavior. These behaviors extend beyond criminal and deviant acts to include the rationalization and normalization of new activities. Hinduja’s work makes important steps to advance the study of emerging forms of criminal and deviant conduct. Criminological research and the criminal justice system have generally failed to consider “who”, “how”, and “why” questions concerning online, digital, and cyber-behaviors. Music Piracy and Crime Theory advances our knowledge by exploring illegal file transfers among youth. As society increasingly relies on digital technologies to facilitate work, entertainment, commerce, and social interactions social inquiry must consider the applicability of existing theories to help understand and explain behavior and relations. Hinduja is to be commended for recognizing this trend and working to advance our thinking in new directions.
Dr. Joseph Schafer
Associate Professor & Undergraduate Program Director
Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency & Corrections
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
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While most college students will refrain from shoplifting CD’s from Wal-Mart, the vast majority of them have illegally downloaded music from the Internet. What makes these two behaviors so different? In Music Piracy and Crime Theory, Hinduja comprehensively and insightfully explores the ubiquitous, yet legally proscribed practice of “sharing” digital music files among college students. This cutting-edge work investigates these activities from a criminological perspective by theoretically and empirically examining the extent to which traditional theories of criminal behavior can inform our understanding of this nontraditional deviance. Hinduja provides a thorough review of the legal issues concerning MP3 technology, a concise explanation of three of the most popular criminological theories, and an intelligent discussion of the implications of his research. This is a must-read for all who are interested in better understanding the causes of Internet-based deviant behavior.
Dr. Justin W. Patchin
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice
Department of Political Science
University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire
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The ubiquity of the internet has vast social implications for human learning, commerce, and, of course, deviance and crime. Sameer Hinduja carves out the latter for study in his book Music Piracy and Crime Theory. This work lays a careful and convincing foundation for the consideration of illegal file sharing as a social harm which should be within the ambit of criminological research. Three leading general theories of crime are used to explain the phenomenon among the more than 2,000 college students surveyed in this study. In conducting this research Hinduja has simultaneously established the importance of understanding and explaining the etiology of on-line misbehavior and offered grounded policy implications for establishing greater observance of copyright protections. This book will undoubtedly serve as a template and sourcebook for future studies of cybercrime by criminologists.
Dr. John McCluskey
Associate Professor of Criminal Justice
Department of Criminal Justice
University of Texas San-Antonio