Subscription Versus Piracy: A Case Study On Dubai's Market Preference

Write a report on Subscription versus Piracy: A case study on Dubai's markets preference towards subscription services vs. piracy 

In the age of internet and smartphones, subscription versus piracy is a trending topic. As the internet and invention of personal computers have brought revolution in the 1990s, the definition of entertainment has changed quite drastically. With new technologies being developed quite rapidly, people are adopting new means for uploading, downloading and watching videos. In this process, as there are subscription channels, there are also sites for piracy. Piracy is an illegal activity that violates the copyrights. It gives the user opportunities to access and download the copyrighted creative content, such as, music, videos and movies by using peer-to-peer networking (Riekkinen 2016). When the internet has been helping various art forms to spread across the corners of the world, piracy sites have created platform, which has helped the pirates to access and enjoy the form of the art without any cost. As stated by Siponen, Vance and Willison (2012), piracy has had a negative impact on the revenue of the music, video and movie industries in a large manner. With the invention of peer-to-peer network, the piracy started with illegal music download and later on it invaded in movie and online video industries also. However, in the recent past, there is another new platform of online video streaming on demand, which charges a nominal fee and provides high quality videos and music on demand. Netflix is the market leader in video on demand services. This research study will present the impact of subscription channels on the piracy industry and what the people of Dubai perceive about the subscription services and pirated music and videos. In other words, the preference of people of Dubai regarding the subscription services and piracy and how the piracy services are affected by the emergence of the subscription channels like Netflix, Hulu etc. is the subject matter of this research. The researcher has focused on primary data analysis to get an idea on people’s perception regarding the research topic and analyzed the data using quantitative method to address the research question.

In the current situation there has been a gradual rise in the usage of the music and video streaming sites in the country due to the different usage patterns of the users in the different scenarios. The different sites of the online streaming service are making it relatively easy for the audience to gain access to the different content available on the different sites. The better quality content often make it easier and preferable to the end user to access the different sites and use them for the viewing the contents of their choice. The different aspects of the download speed and the quality of the content also affect the population that chooses to shift to the pirated sites due to the lower internet speeds.

As highlighted by Riekkinen (2018), the invent and rising popularity of the subscription video on demand (SVOD) services has been important in the 2000s as it helped to shape the landscape of media and entertainment industries. Although, it is seen that the piracy in music has been declining, the other forms of media and entertainment industry are facing the problem of piracy (Yoon 2011). There is growth in the paid music streaming but not in the video content industries. Netflix has revolutionized the subscription based video on demand services and there are many new streaming companies, such Amazon prime video and music, Hulu etc. that are following the trend of subscription videos, started by Netflix. However, it did not affect much the pirated online video content market, rather the piracy still exists. The piracy traffic numbers for the popular television series and movies, such as, Game of Thrones, are rising, especially for the new episodes, and that is a serious concern for the video entertainment industry (Spangler 2018).

Research Aim and Objective

Napster was the pioneer in introducing the peer-to-peer network in the internet that started the trend of online music piracy (Morris and Higgins 2010). This network has captured all types of digital entertainment platforms. The online piracy has expanded from music to movies and videos since the 2010s. The online music and video piracy has some similarities and differences as well. Both use the peer-to-peer networks, and have affected the revenues and profits of the industry. In the initial period, the speed of the internet connections was an obstacle for video piracy due to the fact that the pirated files were used to be too large and the quality was also poor compared to the legal copies. As technology has advanced, the quality of the files improved and the speed of the internet increased. Thus, video piracy became convenient as the music piracy (Belleflamme and Peitz 2014). However, the availability of the video content is much lower than that of the music content and the subscription based services have focused on providing selected and exclusive content to capture the legal market share.

In this context, it can be said that, subscription based video services have been successful to some extent to reduce the online video piracy by providing HD quality video at an affordable price. In Dubai, online piracy is punishable. According to Deberky (2014), UAE ranks among the top 20 countries in the anti-piracy ratings with its zero-tolerance policy for piracy. The Department of Economic Development, Dubai (DED) has been making policies and taking actions to reduce the incidence of piracy. Various campaigns and awareness programs have been launched to protect the intellectual property. Legislations have been made and are enforced strictly to reduce violations of copyrights. Thus, the government of Dubai has been supporting the paid video streaming services by enforcing the anti-piracy regulations. There have been many instances where the person violating the anti-piracy law was arrested and sentenced to jail and fined a lump sum amount (Rogers 2017). However, this does not indicate the increase in popularity of the subscription video services in Dubai. Although, there are many video streaming services in the regions, namely, Starz Play, Icflix, Bein Sports, Eros Now, Go and YouTube, the world leaders, such as, HBO Now, Amazon Video, Hulu etc. are yet to enter the market (Gulfnews.com 2018). However, it is dubious to believe that the subscription video services have been successful to end the piracy in Dubai. There are two aspects of the legal business, one is the anti-piracy laws and the other is the subscription based online video demand services, which have significant impact on reducing the video piracy in Dubai. This research study will highlight the impact of one aspect, that is, the subscription channels on the pirated video market in Dubai.

The aim of the research study is to evaluate the impact of the various subscriptions based video and audio streaming services on the pirated market for digital entertainment in Dubai.

The objectives of the study are:

• To examine the costs and benefits of subscription based audio and video streaming services
• To assess the impact of the subscription based audio and video streaming services on the piracy market in Dubai
• To evaluate the perception of people regarding the music and video piracy in Dubai and the effectiveness of subscription based audio and video streaming services
• To provide recommendations on how to make the subscription based audio and video streaming more popular so that piracy can be eliminated.

The research questions for the study are:

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of the subscription based music and video streaming services?
• Have the subscription based audio and video streaming services affected the piracy market for music and video streaming in Dubai?
• What is the perception of the people in Dubai regarding the subscription based audio and video streaming services and whether they prefer to use those services for watching contents instead of pirated contents?
• How the popularity of the paid services can be increased to eliminate online audio and video piracy in Dubai?

Research Questions

The problem statement for this study is to explore the factors influencing the popularity of the subscription based music and video streaming services in Dubai and how those are affecting the piracy market for digital entertainment content. The study also focuses on the preferences of the people regarding the online music and video streaming and pirated contents and how that is affecting the industries.

The research study aims to contribute in both the academic and business world on the subject of subscription based music and video streaming services and digital entertainment piracy and its impacts. In the context of academic discussion, there have been many studies on the piracy of the music and its impact on the legal music industry. It has been found that since its innovation, the peer-to-peer network has caused severe negative impact on the legal industries of music. The music production studios and businesses have faced decline in their revenues and profit due to illegal music downloads (Garamgaibaatar 2011). However, the concept of subscription based video services is quite new. These services have been able to capture the market by providing high quality videos on demand against an affordable subscription fee. However, there has been no study on the impact of these subscription services on the digital entertainment market of Dubai. Through this study, the researcher will contribute in the world of literature by highlighting the effect of these services on the digital entertainment industry. The researcher aims to gain an extensive knowledge on the digital entertainment industry, especially, the video content and movie industry in Dubai and how the introduction of the paid services of audio and video on demand has impacted the piracy of the contents in Dubai. Thus, the study has important implication in the academic world.

The study also has significance in regards to the business world. The research study aims to find out the factors that play important role in influencing the people to subscribe for the music and video on demand services rather than going for pirated videos. Apart from the anti-piracy laws of the UAE, there are many other factors which are significant for shifting the popularity of the music and video on demand from pirated to paid services. The findings of this research study would be beneficial to the subscription channels and platforms for enhancing their features and providing more efficient services to the consumers. Hence, the research findings would be beneficial and profitable for the businesses offering the subscription based on-demand video content in Dubai.

Chapter 1 of the study will introduce the research topic to the readers. The researcher presents the aim and objectives of the study along with research question, problem statement, background of the study and significance or rationale of the research. Chapter 2 presents a comprehensive literature review. The knowledge gained from extensive study of the previous research works, journals and other academic and non-academic sources will be presented in this chapter to create the theoretical framework of the study. Chapter 3 describes the research methodology that was adopted to conduct the study. In chapter 4, 5 and 6, the researcher presents the findings of the data analysis, the explanations of the outcome and the conclusions and recommendations on the research problem.

Problem Statement

This chapter comprises of the knowledge gained by the researcher by exploring many literatures by other scholars on the related subjects. This study aims to find out the impact of the subscription based video and audio on demand services on the pirated video and audio market in Dubai. There have been many scholarly articles on the related subjects that explored various aspects of audio and video piracy and their impact on the entertainment industry. The researcher has done extensive reading and presents the gained knowledge in this chapter to make the readers acquainted with the research topic and to create a theoretical context for the study.

The emergence of the internet was one of the biggest technological revolutions of the 20^th century. It has made the world smaller and people have become more knowledgeable with the help of computers and internet. The changes came very rapidly in the past few decades. Along with information on everything on earth, the internet has made many other contents available also. The invention of peer-to-peer file sharing technology was which created a big impact on the entertainment industry, especially when the digital media became a form of entertainment. Digital piracy refers to obtaining the digital content, especially the media files without permissions or taking the legal ownership (Chang and Walter 2015). In other words, digital piracy enables the users to download the media files illegally.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing is the technology for distributing the digital media over a peer network. In this technology, the digital media files that are located in the individual computers, and not on the centralized server, are shared with the members of the networks (Petrescu, Gironda and Korgaonkar 2016). This technology was beneficial for piracy of digital media files by violating the copyrights. In the early 2000s this technology became immensely popular as people got the access to music for almost free of cost, which was otherwise highly expensive at that time. The file sharing software clients, such as, Pirate Bay, BitTorrent and many more, used the P2P file sharing technology that enabled the users to upload and download digital media, especially the music files in MP3 format and later on movies, documentaries and other video contents in MP4 format, which created a huge market for illegal downloads and pirated music and video (Belleflamme and Peitz 2014).

Music piracy refers to the copying and distributing the copies of the music illegally, by violating the copyright laws. Since, the users get the access to the music for free of cost, the revenue of the music making companies and the artists get reduced substantially due to the music piracy. More and more people can enjoy their music without any cost, which is a threat for the music industry. Music piracy had affected Beethoven also, as the pirated copies of his creations had reduced his earnings (Albinsson 2012). As the technologies are getting advanced rapidly, the theft or piracy of music has been evolving continuously in the past decade. Bhattacharjee et al. (2005) highlighted in their paper that, the P2P technology has impacted the music industry profoundly, due to the fact that it affected the sales of the original music copies and the revenues and the profit of the music companies was negatively affected. The authors explored the impact of P2P on the survival of the music on the charts, which was found to be significantly reduced in the post P2P era due to the easy availability of the music.

Research Rationale

Napster was launched in 1999 as a file sharing service, which became extremely popular for downloading unauthorized music for free from the internet. The arrival of Broadband has contributed in the large scale growth of this service. It has been found that in 2009, the trade value of the music sales in the UK fell by 25% after the illegal music download was started (Arthur 2016). In the America also, the illegal downloads negatively affected the sales of the CDs and DVDs, which consequently affected the music companies. As highlighted by Chae et al. (2016), there are quite a few disadvantages of the file sharing technology that gave rise to the pirate music and video industry. As the revenue of the industries have fallen, many people lost their jobs, the royalties of the artists were reduced and less funding was allotted for the new talents, which affected the creation of new music. The piracy of music has also violated the copyrights law, for which, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other trade associations of music have sued Napster and other services in the piracy business (Dilmperi, King and Dennis 2011). On the other hand, Odou and Bonnin (2014) showed a benefit of the illegal downloads. The music piracy has helped the artists to spread their music to far wide corners of the world, which was inaccessible earlier. These services, such as, the Napster and Kazza, have exposed many artists to people, which would not have been possible otherwise. That helped them to expand their fan base across the world. It also compelled the music companies to reduce their prices of the CDs and DVDs and make the records available to a wider population, thereby helping the music to spread widely.

The piracy started with music files and eventually it expanded in the movies and video content also. The illegal downloads have been a threat to the growth of the film industry. As the trend for piracy started with the music files, it expanded in the movie industry also. The movie and other type of video files were converted into digital content, which were illegally downloaded through peer-to-peer file sharing technology, that is, the torrents. The files were compressed into smaller sized files for easy sharing. It has created a significant threat for the film industry across the world. A report by Lodderhose (2014) in The Guardian showed that, almost 30% of the population of the UK was engaged in some type of piracy, such as, illegally downloading the movies and videos through torrents, streaming the content online or purchasing counterfeit DVDs, which affected the revenue of the industries in the UK for about £500 million in a year. The Film Distributors’ Association highlighted that when a successful film is copied and distributed in the market illegally, the value of the film is reduced around the world (Smallridge and Roberts 2013). The exclusivity of a video content or a movie helps the producers to earn a price for its worth, which helps them to earn profit and sustain in the industry.

The file sharing technology used for the videos and movies are known as torrenting. This was invented to share those files that are much bigger in size than the music files. Piratebay was the most used torrent site used for illegally downloading the movies and video contents, followed by Kickass Torrent. The easy availability of the content had made these sites and torrents extremely popular. Presence of many such servers and sites is an advantage for the users as they can shift to another site if one does not work or shuts down (Danaher, Smith and Telang 2015). Since, these are illegal activities, they always face the risk of police raid. In December 2014, the Swedish police raided the servers of the Piratebay Torrent and they shut down forcefully. It did not deter the users from illegally downloading movies, rather they started using Kickass Torrent, making them the biggest gainer (Sinclair and Green 2016). However, once Pirateby was back, they gained back their market position. Various governments, such as, the UK, the USA, and France have openly banned the torrent sites to reduce the piracy. Not only movies, people download documentaries, episodes of TV series, games and software files. Thus, piracy affects not only the film industry, but also the television and computer game making industries (Sudler 2013).

Similar to the music piracy, video piracy also has costs and benefits. On one hand, it gives a hard blow to the movie making industry, on the other hand, it increases the customer base of the movies, especially of the foreign language movies, which would not have been otherwise    watched by people by going to the cinemaplexes. In many cases, many good movies are not always released in all countries, which makes the audiences deprived of that experience. Through torrents, people can download the film and enjoy the experience. This helps in expanding the customer base of the film industry, although the industry is not earning any revenue from that illegal market. In this regard, Zhang (2015) conducted a study on the impact of file sharing activity on the box office returns. The outcome of the extensive study showed that the video piracy did not affect the box office returns significantly. It is found that, piracy has mostly affected the sales of the CDs and DVDs, due to the fact that people like to keep a personal movie collection, and for that, they might not prefer to buy the high priced CDs and DVDs for every film, rather they would like to download the movies for free of cost.

The subscription based services has gained popularity in the past decade. This has helped the piracy of music and videos to reduce substantially. In the 21^st century, the largest and most significant development in the music industry was the introduction of internet. The files were being transformed to digital files for easy sharing. However, Napster used the internet and brought a huge revolution in online music sharing. The emergence of peer to peer file sharing created a threat to the music and movie industry across the world, pioneered by Napster. In 1999, Napster was introduced for sharing digital versions of music files among the users for free. The users could not only download the files, but could also gain access to the live versions of the music for free of cost. This service made the access to the music extremely affordable to all the people, who otherwise would have been deprived of it due to high cost of the records and CDs. However, as peer to peer file sharing technology was creating business loss to the music industry, various institutions started banning the technology from their online networks. The music piracy led way to the video piracy and with significant impact on the industries. For example, Napster created issues in regards to the copyright violation and creating immense financial loss for the industry (Holt and Sanson 2013). The supreme courts in many countries started to create legislations against the peer to peer file sharing technology and made it illegal. Napster was forced to shut down in 2001 for breaching the copy right laws although it had almost 21.4 million users (Brewster 2017).

However, this technology presented a new avenue for the industries by showing how they could expand their customer base and this led to the emergence of online music streaming, which is a legal service. As highlighted by McCorkle et al. (2012), the music industry launched MusicNet, which allowed the users to enjoy millions of legally licensed songs against a monthly subscription fee. However, MusicNet was not a success as the artists got a very small royalty, while the music industry kept 91% of profit (Brewster 2017). In 2003, Apple first launched iTunes, the online music library to be used with their intrinsic MP3 player. With a minimum subscription charge, the users were able to access and download unlimited number of music files and albums. This started a new era in the industry. In 2004, Pandora Radio was launched with on demand music streaming. It also started suggesting music based on the search and listening history of the users. By 2013, Pandora had more than 200 million users (Sinclair and Green 2016). Although other piracy sites were still available, people started to avail the streaming services for better quality and legal music files. Following Apple and Pandora, many other companies launched online music streaming services. Overtime, the technology has been improved quite rapidly and that started giving control to the artists to distribute their own content. Spotify, Google Play Music, Amazon Prime Music, Anghami, Deezer, Jukebox, Soundcloud etc. are few of these services that require a minimum monthly subscription charges for giving the access to unlimited variety of all the latest as well as old albums across all types of genres. These services provide better quality music files as well as on demand service (Strangelove 2015).

Along with music piracy, video content piracy was another concern of the industry. The large sized digital files of the movies and documentaries were compressed into smaller folders and were shared through peer-to-peer networks. Illegal downloads created a big blow to the movie industry. Video on demand services were introduced to reduce the illegal downloads of videos. The video rental services were also started to eliminate the piracy. Blockbuster was one of the most popular video rental stores in the USA in 1990s. When the torrents appear, people started downloading illegal contents. However, various online video streaming platforms and video on demand services emerged that required subscription charges. Netflix entered the market and changed the definition of subscription based video services. Netflix was a disruptive innovation that changed the business model of Blockbuster (Christensen, Raynor and McDonald 2015) and also hit hard the piracy market. Although Netflix killed the business of blockbuster, yet it introduced a new platform for streaming videos on demand. Like the music subscriptions, there are many other channels apart from Netflix that stream videos on demand against a subscription. Those are Hulu, YouTube, Starz Play, Google Play Movies, Eros Now, Go and many more. These services have helped in reducing the illegal downloads of the video contents. With the peer-to-peer technology being banned by the supreme courts as illegal, the subscription based video and music on demand services have gained popularity across the world by offering highest quality content and unlimited number of choices.

It is found that the rate of music and video piracy has reduced in the past few years. The evolution of smartphones and mobile internet has contributed in this. After the launch of the first smartphone of the world, iPhone by Apply in 2007, the mobile phone industry has gone through a huge revolution. The iOS and Android technology by Google have incorporated their own subscription based music and video on demand streaming apps, which have become quite popular. People are also becoming aware regarding the negative impact of piracy on the industries as well as on the lives of people associated with those industries, which also contributed in reducing the extent of illegal downloads. Along with that, the authorities are now reducing the monthly subscription charges to attract more audience and increase the market share so that the piracy can be eliminated completely (Gilbreath 2017). When the vast number of music and video becomes available at a lower cost, even if there is advertisements, like in the YouTube, people with all income range could afford it. The artists are also earning more royalties through these legal platforms and at the same time, they can expand their audience base across the globe.

Godinho de Matos, Ferreira and Smith (2017) highlighted that there are quite a few security threats associated with the piracy or illegal downloads. As the regulations are getting stricter with every law, the peer to peer technology is being evolved too. Hence, according to the authors, as the content industry will take more actions against the individuals indulging in illegal downloads, the P2P technology would also evolve in a manner that would introduce techniques to shield or protect the IDs of the individuals. Thus, anonymization, distributed downloads and trust networking, are some of the ways to protect the IDs of the people.

This chapter illustrates the methodology adopted for this study. Research methodology refers to the strategy followed by the researcher to answer the research questions in the most appropriate and logical manner. In the given research study, the researcher explored the impact of subscription based music and video on demand services on the pirated market in Dubai. To conduct this study, the researcher collected primary data through a survey and quantitative method was applied to get the outcome. The methodology in details has been explained below.

Research philosophy refers to ideology guides the researcher to conduct the study in a suitable direction to get a meaningful outcome. The origin, nature and development of knowledge determine the research philosophy. As stated by Hughes and Sharrock (2016), research philosophy represents a belief regarding the way in which the data on the research issue should be collected, analyzed and utilized. Hence, depending on the beliefs and assumptions of the researchers, the relevant research philosophy should be chosen for a study. Few four major types of research philosophies are positivism, realism, interpretivism, and pragmatism. According to Broad (2014), positivism philosophy allows the researcher to evaluate the research issue by using quantitative method. This is more logical and highly structured and large samples are used for data collection. On the other hand, interpretivism is the opposite of positivism, in which the researcher uses qualitative investigation methods on the data collected from smaller, sometimes unstructured samples. Realism enables the researcher to conduct the study independently, free from any type of perception, and data analysis method can be qualitative or quantitative, and it is not predetermined. Lastly, pragmatism is the philosophy that uses both qualitative and quantitative method (Saunders and Lewis 2012).

In the given study, the researcher has used positivism research philosophy. As the data collected through a survey on a large sample, the large volume of data was prepared and analyzed using quantitative analysis method. This process allowed for scientific and logical calculations to get the outcome regarding the impact of subscription based music and video services on the piracy market in Dubai. Qualitative interpretation was not suitable for this study as information had to be gathered from a large sample.

Research approach is the procedure of data collection, examination and interpretation. As stated by Sekaran and Bougie (2016), research approach is the method to evaluate the assumptions of the study. There are three types of research approach, namely, inductive, deductive and abductive. Inductive research approach enables the researcher to propose new theories and generalize, while deductive approach is used to examine the validity of the assumptions of the study. Abductive approach involves many potential outcomes of the study and the researcher explains those to get the best outcome (Punch 2013).

In the given study, the researcher applied the deductive research approach. It was assumed that the subscription based music and video on demand services did not have a significant impact on the market for illegal downloads in Dubai. This assumption was examined using quantitative descriptive methods and against already established theories. Generalization took place from the general theories to the specific research phenomenon and outcome was derived from the quantitative testing of the data. There was no scope for generating new theories or choosing one outcome from a set of potential outcomes. Thus, deductive research approach was most appropriate for this study.

According to Mitchell and Jolley (2012), research design represents a set of procedures applied for collecting and examining the measures of the data variables, mentioned in the research topic. The research design illustrates the type and sub-type of the study that is applied to get the answers to the research questions. Various types of research design are descriptive, correlational, experimental, and quasi-experimental. Under descriptive research design, the researcher generates the analysis and outcome from the existing data and describes the phenomenon (De Vaus and de Vaus 2013). Correlational research design involves the examination of the causal relationship between the two variables representing the research problem. Usually, research hypotheses are examined in this design. Under experimental and quasi-experimental design, cause and effect relationship is established between the research variables, except randomized sample groups are used in quasi-experimental study (Marczyk, DeMatteo and Festinger 2017).

In the given study, the researcher adopted correlational research design. The research questions focused on variables addressing various aspects of piracy and subscription services. The relationships between the variables were needed to be examined to get the outcome. This causal relationship, that is, the implications or impact of subscription based services on the business performance of the piracy market in Dubai was examined by applying statistical methods of analysis.

Research strategy refers to the step-by-step plan of the researcher to address the research questions. As stated by Saunders and Lewis (2012), research strategy refers to how the researcher proposes to address the research questions and assumptions and how the methodology will be implemented. After designing the research questions, the researcher must make a plan on how to approach on answering them. There are few most commonly used research strategies, namely, case study, quantitative survey, qualitative interviews and action research. Punch (2013) highlighted that under case study, the researcher needs to focus on a detailed and in-depth study of a single case and to conduct this type of research, the researcher must gather specific information on that particular case by using different data collection method, such as, surveys, interviews, observations, and document analysis. This data can be qualitative or quantitative or mixed. On the other hand, qualitative interviews involve interview methods, such as, structured, semi-structured and unstructured, and extensive information is collected and analyzed using qualitative data analysis method. Quantitative survey depends highly on questionnaire and quantitative data analysis and action oriented research is undertaken in the businesses when a product is changed or production method is changed for a better outcome (Yilmaz 2013).

The researcher adopted the quantitative interview research strategy in the given research study. This study involved a market research that aimed to explore people’s perception regarding the subscription based music and video on demand services and their choice regarding the illegal downloads and subscription services, which in turn focused on the impact of those paid services on the business of the pirated market in Dubai. There was no particular organization involved, which could be used as a particular case study. There was also no scope for qualitative interviews to gather the opinion of the people regarding the research topic. This study also had no requirement for action research as there was no element that needed to be changed. Hence, quantitative survey option was implemented by the researcher to gather the data from a large number of customers of the subscribed music and video on demand services. This helped to get an idea about how the markets for subscribed services and pirated music and video services worked in Dubai and how the paid services affected the piracy of music and videos.

Sampling is essential in any research work. Sampling is the technique that is used to extract a smaller subset from a large population. The smaller subset is known as the sample, containing the same characteristics of the population that was chosen for the study. Sampling is done as it is not possible to study the entire population for the research purpose, especially, if the population is too large, as in case of market research (Burns, Bush and Sinha 2014). Hence, to study the research topic, a smaller subset with the same feature is drawn from the population using appropriate sampling technique (Uprichard 2013). Two types of sampling techniques are probability and non-probability sampling. In the probability sampling, each sample has equal probability of being chosen and the choice is random, while in non-probability sampling, the choice of sample depends on the judgment of the researcher and the process is not random (Acharya et al. 2013). Simple random sampling, cluster sampling, stratified sampling, and systematic sampling are probability sampling, while quota sampling, purposive sampling, convenience sampling, snow ball sampling are few non-probability sampling methods.

In this research study, the researcher applied simple random sampling to choose 100 respondents for conducting the data collection. From the entire population of Dubai, it was not possible to choose the survey respondents using any judgment or non-probability method. Thus, the researcher applied simple random sampling to select respondents. The researcher chose to draw the sample from the universities of Dubai, where it was assumed that people would be aware of the subscription based on demand services and illegal downloads and their impacts.

As stated earlier, the researcher adopted the quantitative survey research strategy. Thus, it can be understood that the researcher used survey method to collect the data for the study. A survey questionnaire was prepared with 20 questions, all of which were close ended. The questionnaire contained two sections, demographic and non-demographic. The demographic section included questions on gender, age group, occupation status and monthly income of the participants. The non-demographic section contained 16 questions, most containing the answer options in 5 point rating scale. The survey questionnaire was prepared in easy language so that the users could understand the meaning of the questions and answer them properly. The questionnaire was prepared using Google form and the link was sent to the participants via their emails.

The researcher followed the quantitative descriptive data analysis method to analyze the gathered information and get the outcome in the most logical manner. The responses were collected through the Google form link. The survey responses were converted into numerical values to apply the statistical functions. SPSS version 20 was used to perform the mathematical and statistical operations. The researcher performed descriptive statistics to know the pattern of the responses. Cross tabulations, paired t-test, correlation and regression were performed to get the desired outcome of the study.

Since, the study involved participants, the ethical issues regarding the survey participants was met. Informed consents were collected from the participants prior to the survey. No participants was forced or bribed to participate in the research survey. At the same time, it was made clear that the information would remain strictly confidential and the participants would respond anonymously.

The researcher has conducted a market survey only due to time and budget limitation. To conduct an extensive research, the researcher also needed to collect qualitative data and analyze the human perception to get a broader view on the research topic.

Task	Month
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Making a framework and research outline
Designing research aim, objective, and questions
Literature review
Selecting research methodology
Primary data collection
Conducting survey
Data analysis
Report writing
Thesis submission

This chapter illustrates the findings from the data collected through survey and the analysis results. The researcher collected primary data through a survey. 100 respondents were chosen as a sample by applying simple random sampling technique and the survey questionnaire was circulated among them through email. The survey contained questions on various aspects of subscriptions for video and audio on demand services and people’s awareness about the prevalence of piracy and its impact. The questionnaire had two sections, demographic and non-demographic, and contained 20 close ended questions. Descriptive and quantitative analyses methods were applied on the response data. The findings from the survey are as follows.

This section highlights the descriptive analysis of the survey responses. Visual representation of the data is done by using pie charts and bar graphs. These are beneficial for understanding the pattern of the responses and to get the information on the number of subscription based services existing in Dubai. The survey commences with demographic data, which collects information on the socio-economic background of the respondents, such as, gender, age, group, occupation status and monthly income. This information was helpful in understanding the social and economic background of the participants and its implications on the subscription pattern of them

All the questions in the survey are close ended and the responses were collected on 5 point rating scales, such as, the likert scale. Those values were converted in numeric values for the purpose of quantitative analysis. As the study wants to explore the impact of subscription music and video services on the piracy market in Dubai, it should be taken into account that there are many factors that can influence the choice of subscription based services. Through the survey, people’s opinion was collected regarding the picture and sound quality of the subscription based music and video, their satisfaction regarding the program choices offered in those services, cost comparison between the pirated contents and subscribed contents, legal implications and people’s intention for opting the pirated services or subscribed services.

This section highlights the explanation of the findings from the data analysis. This study is majorly a descriptive and explanatory study. 100 people were selected randomly as a sample using simple random sampling technique for conducting the survey. The survey aimed to collect information on people’s opinion regarding piracy as an illegal activity in the UAE, their preference for subscription based music and video services, and their knowledge on the impact of piracy. The survey data was converted into numeric values and descriptive analysis was done on it. Visual representation through pie charts was done to make the findings more comprehensive. From the analysis of the response pattern it is found that people in the UAE are aware that music and video piracy is illegal and many of them have accounts in the subscription based services, such as, Netflix, Bein Sportz, Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music and few more. It is found that people have accounts more in the video services than in the music services. The monthly income of the respondents was asked to get an idea about the pattern and preferences for the subscription in video and music on demand services. The cross tabulations showed that people with higher monthly income generally has accounts in the subscription based services. However, it is expected that people with lower income have preference for piracy, but it is found from the cross tabulations that people who are satisfied with the program choices and picture and sound quality for the subscribed music and video contents also prefer to opt for piracy. The reason for this can be inferred from the responses on the cost comparison of the pirated content and subscribed content. It is found that 69% of the participants agreed that the pirated services are very cheap or almost free. Thus, the preference for pirated contents comes from the lower cost of those than the subscription services.

Correlation was performed to find out the relationship between four major variables defining different aspects of the research topic. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient values indicate that cost of the services is a major determinant factor of whether the popularity of the subscription services will increase in the next few years. Hence, if the piracy services become costlier due to payments and penalty charges, and subscription charges are reduced, the popularity of the subscription based services would be increased. This would also negatively affect the intention of consuming pirated content. Thus, potential popularity of the subscription services is positively correlated with these variables.

Another aspect can be highlighted in this regard. Subscription charges make the legal music and video contents unavailable to many consumers even if they are satisfied with the program choices. Many would have discontinued using those on-demand services after the free trial in the first month due to high subscription charges. This has made them to opt for the pirated contents even if it’s an illegal practice in the UAE. Maximum number of people have agreed that digital piracy or illegal downloads create a heavy loss for the music and film industry, and majority have also agreed that if subscription charges are cut down, piracy would be reduced and there is a high possibility of increasing popularity of the subscription based music and video on-demand services in Dubai in the next few years. At the same time, majority responded neutral that the government should make penalties more strict for piracy. This implies that although people are aware that piracy is illegal and there is high level difference in the quality of picture and sound between the pirated and subscribed content, yet, due to high subscription charges and easy availability of the pirated contents, they still opt for pirated music and videos. According to the participants, few are satisfied with the varieties of the programs offered in the subscription based services and hence, it can be implied that people get more video and music choices in the piracy market. Thus, this is also a reason for people’s intention to continue with the pirated content. In the next few years, the popularity of the subscription based services would be increased in Dubai and digital piracy would be reduced if, according to the respondents, the subscription charges for the services are reduced and made affordable to all.

Conclusion

This chapter presents the concluding remarks on the study. The purpose of the study was to find out the impact of subscription based music and video services on the digital piracy in Dubai. To conduct the study, the researcher collected primary data from 100 respondents through a survey. This method was chosen for data collection due to its convenience for being less time and cost consuming. The analysis of the data has brought about some implications regarding the subscription based services and its impact on the illegal downloads in Dubai. In this chapter, the researcher has established connection between the findings and objectives of the study. Some recommendations have also been provided to address the issues found from the responses. Those are as follows.

Linking with first objective 

The first objective of the study was to assess the cost and benefits of subscription based audio and video streaming services. Through the review of various previous literatures by other scholars, the researcher gained knowledge on the costs and benefits of the subscription based music and video services. Various such services have become quite popular in the recent few years, such as, Netflix, Youtube, Spotify, Anghami, Bein Sports, Deezer, Apple Music, Google Play Music, Groove Music, Go and many more. All these services provide one month free trial of the services and then there is monthly or yearly charges. Benefits of these services are that they provide high quality content in terms of picture and sound. They keep HD quality contents of a huge number of programs or audio albums in their library. Thus, for a certain amount fee per month or yearly the users can access a large number of high quality items on demand. However, the costs of these services are the high subscription charges, which are often unaffordable to many users, especially the students or unemployed people. It was also found that sometimes, many items are not in their library and then the users have to opt for illegal downloads. Even though they know that piracy is illegal and that incurs loss for the music and film industries, yet to access some specific and recently released contents, which are trending, such as, the series “Game of Thrones’, the users choose to go for pirated content. Many times, it has been found that all the videos or music is not always available in every country in which these services are available. For example, the famous American sitcom ‘FRIENDS’ was available in Netflix in the USA but not in the UAE. Hence, higher charges and unavailability of some trending contents are the costs of these services.

The second objective of the study was to examine the impact of the subscription based audio and video streaming services on the piracy market in Dubai. From the literature review and data analysis, it was found that although people have accounts in some subscription based services, yet they prefer to access the pirated services for some more contents. The taste of music and video watching varies for one individual to the other and it is not possible for the subscription based services to provide all the contents to billions of users in the world. At the same time, the content list is also variable in different countries, which makes some of the content unavailable to the users. Thus, in the UAE, although people are opening accounts in the subscription based music and video streaming services, yet they prefer to access the pirated services for illegal downloads for some international contents. The piracy services are illegal but those are far cheaper and almost free than the paid services, which attracts the users. Thus, it can be said that the paid services have not been able to create a significant impact on the piracy services in Dubai, however, if the charges are cut down, it is possible that the incidence of piracy is reduced in the future.

The third objective of the study was to evaluate the perception of people regarding the music and video piracy in Dubai and the effectiveness of subscription based audio and video streaming services. The findings from the survey data showed that people spend almost 3 to 5 hours in a week on an average for watching videos from the video streaming services, while they spend less than 2 hours and 3 to 5 hours daily on an average for music from the paid streaming services. Thus, people, who have opened accounts in these services, spend some time for watching the videos, or listening to music. However, the survey did not collect data on how much time they spend for downloading illegal contents and watching those. Hence, it can only be concluded that people spend quite a substantial time for digital entertainment from these services. They are also aware that piracy is illegal, and the government can take strict action against them who would be caught for indulging in this illegal act. The participants also reported that, they found that the subscription based contents are far superior in terms of picture and sound quality to the pirated contents. They are also satisfied with the video and music choices in these paid services. However, the cost of subscription is higher than the cost of piracy and thus, they still prefer to opt of pirated services. In this context, it has been observed that if the subscription charges are reduced, it is possible that the popularity of the paid streaming services would be increased in the near future and illegal downloads would be reduced, benefitting the digital entertainment industry.

The fourth objective of the study was to provide recommendations on how to make the subscription based audio and video streaming services more popular so that piracy can be eliminated. From the study, few aspects have been noticed, which create issues in the path of growing popularity of the paid music and video streaming services. The researcher presents some recommendations to increase the popularity of these services and to reduce the incidence of illegal downloads. Those are as follows.

• The channels or services providing paid contents, should reduce the subscription chargesso that the services become affordable to all segments of people in the society. In Dubai, the monthly charges for two-screen view of Netflix are Dhs 39, which is more than $9.99, equivalent to Dhs 37. Deezer, the music streaming services also charges $9.99 or Dhs 37. The ad free versions of these sites have a higher charge. Some people have accounts in more than one such service and thus, the total monthly payment is much higher. On the contrary, the pirated services are much cheaper, and almost free. Hence, people with lower income, students, or unemployed individuals have a tendency to opt for the illegal downloads rather than having a recurring expenditure every month for the entertainment platforms.
• These services shouldincrease their stock of contents very frequently and update the trending contents at the earliest. They should update their library with the latest releases of music and videos to retain their user base. As currently, these services take some time to update their content database, the young generation gets inclined towards pirated content. In the world of internet and virtual world, the youth of Dubai as well as in every other nations wants to stay updated and thus, if a subscription channel cannot broadcast their favorite and trending show immediately after its release, then these users will choose the path of illegal downloads. Hence, choice of programs should be increased and updated with the latest ones.
• The government should set a price control on these servicesto restrict their price rise. The broadcasting ministry of Dubai should take pro-active action to limit the pricing of these services, which would make these popular and reduce the illegal downloads in the nation.
• The government should also make the policies regarding illegal downloads more strictand the penalties should be made higher. They need to make it clear that if people indulge in the illegal activities, the punishment should be higher than before. This action has few other benefits as well. This would help in creating awareness among people about illegal downloads and their impact on the entertainment industry, and would also help the government to earn some revenue in the form of penalty charges from the people, who would be penalized for illegal activities.
• The Information and Broadcasting Ministry of UAE should block the piracy sitesto prevent the users from accessing those. Once those sites are banned, people will be left with no other option than to opt for the subscription based services.

This research topic has a wide scope for future study. In the given research, the researcher focused on only primary data and conducted a descriptive quantitative study. This measured only people’s perception regarding these paid services and their intention of choosing the pirated services. However, this did not focus on the quantitative measure of the business performance of the services as well as that of the piracy business. Thus, in the future studies, the researchers can collect information on the numbers of the business performance and market shares of all these services and conduct a comparative analysis of these. In the given study, only descriptive analysis was performed due to the nature of the data. In future, researchers can apply statistical tools for further in-depth analysis.

References 

Acharya, A.S., Prakash, A., Saxena, P. and Nigam, A., 2013. Sampling: Why and how of it. Indian Journal of Medical Specialities, 4(2), pp.330-333.

Albinsson, S., 2012. Early Music Copyrights: Did They Matter for Beethoven and Schumann?. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, pp.265-302.

Arthur, C., 2016. Will Spotify kill the music download?. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/26/spotify-music-download-apple-itunes-streaming-vinyl [Accessed 16 Jul. 2018].

Belleflamme, P. and Peitz, M., 2014. Digital piracy (pp. 1-8). Springer New York.

Bhattacharjee, S., Gopal, R., Lertwachara, K., Marsden, J. and Telang, R., 2005. The Effect of P2P File Sharing on Music Markets: A Survival Analysis of Albums on Ranking Charts. SSRN Electronic Journal.

Brewster, W., 2017. Musicology: The history of music streaming. [online] Mixdown. Available at: https://www.mixdownmag.com.au/musicology-history-music-streaming [Accessed 16 Jul. 2018].

Broad, C.D., 2014. Religion, philosophy and psychical research: Selected essays. Routledge.

Burns, A.C., Bush, R.F. and Sinha, N., 2014. Marketing research (Vol. 7). Harlow: Pearson.

Chae, C.J., Shin, Y., Choi, K., Kim, K.B. and Choi, K.N., 2016. A privacy data leakage prevention method in P2P networks. Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications, 9(3), pp.508-519.

Chang, Y.M. and Walter, J., 2015. Digital piracy: Price-quality competition between legal firms and P2P network hosts. Information Economics and Policy, 31, pp.22-32.

Christensen, C.M., Raynor, M.E. and McDonald, R., 2015. What is disruptive innovation. Harvard Business Review, 93(12), pp.44-53.

Danaher, B., Smith, M.D. and Telang, R., 2015. The effect of piracy website blocking on consumer behavior.

De Vaus, D. and de Vaus, D., 2013. Surveys in social research. Routledge.

Deberky, S., 2014. Zero tolerance ?for piracy in Dubai. [online] Khaleejtimes.com. Available at: https://www.khaleejtimes.com/nation/general/zero-tolerance-8232-for-piracy-in-dubai [Accessed 3 Jul. 2018].

Dilmperi, A., King, T. and Dennis, C., 2011. Pirates of the web: The curse of illegal downloading. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 18(2), pp.132-140.

Garamgaibaatar, K., 2011. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: Copyrights, Intermediaires, and Digital Pirates. CommLaw Conspectus, 20, p.199.

Gilbreath, B., 2017. Rise of Subscriptions and the Fall of Advertising. [online] Medium.com. Available at: https://medium.com/the-graph/rise-of-subscriptions-and-the-fall-of-advertising-d5e4d8800a49 [Accessed 16 Jul. 2018].

Godinho de Matos, M., Ferreira, P. and Smith, M.D., 2017. The Effect of Subscription Video-on-Demand on Piracy: Evidence from a Household-Level Randomized Experiment. Management Science.

Gulfnews.com, 2017. Streaming services in the UAE. [online] GulfNews. Available at: https://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/media/streaming-services-in-the-uae-1.1650085 [Accessed 3 Jul. 2018].

Holt, J. and Sanson, K. eds., 2013. Connected viewing: Selling, streaming, & sharing media in the digital age. Routledge.

Hughes, J.A. and Sharrock, W.W., 2016. The philosophy of social research. Routledge.

Johnson, M.E., McGuire, D. and Willey, N.D., 2008, January. The evolution of the peer-to-peer file sharing industry and the security risks for users. In Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Proceedings of the 41st Annual (pp. 383-383). IEEE.

Lodderhose, D., 2014. Movie piracy: threat to the future of films intensifies. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/17/digital-piracy-film-online-counterfeit-dvds [Accessed 12 Jul. 2018].

Marczyk, G., DeMatteo, D. and Festinger, D., 2017. Essentials of research design and methodology. John Wiley.

McCorkle, D., Reardon, J., Dalenberg, D., Pryor, A. and Wicks, J., 2012. Purchase or pirate: A model of consumer intellectual property theft. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 20(1), pp.73-86.

Mitchell, M.L. and Jolley, J.M., 2012. Research design explained. Cengage Learning.

Morris, R.G. and Higgins, G.E., 2010. Criminological theory in the digital age: The case of social learning theory and digital piracy. Journal of Criminal Justice, 38(4), pp.470-480.

Odou, P. and Bonnin, G., 2014. Consumers’ neutralization strategies to counter normative pressure: The case of illegal downloading. Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English Edition), 29(1), pp.103-121.

Petrescu, M., Gironda, J. and Korgaonkar, P., 2016. Online Piracy vs. Public Policy and Cultural Influencers. International Journal of Marketing and Social Policy, 1(1), p.3.

Punch, K.F., 2013. Introduction to social research: Quantitative and qualitative approaches. sage.

Riekkinen, J., 2016. Dissonance and Neutralization of Subscription Streaming Era Digital Music Piracy: An Initial Exploration. In PACIS 2016: Proceedings of the 20th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, ISBN 9789860491029. Association for Information Systems.

Riekkinen, J., 2018. Piracy versus Netflix: Subscription Video on Demand Dissatisfaction as an Antecedent of Piracy. In Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences;. University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

Rogers, J., 2017. Most Pirated Shows Revealed After Internet Dubai Pirate Is Jailed. [online] Emirates Woman. Available at: https://emirateswoman.com/internet-pirate-jailed-fined-in-dubai/ [Accessed 3 Jul. 2018].

Saunders, M.N. and Lewis, P., 2012. Doing research in business & management: An essential guide to planning your project. Pearson.

Sekaran, U. and Bougie, R., 2016. Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Sinclair, G. and Green, T., 2016. Download or stream? Steal or buy? Developing a typology of today's music consumer. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 15(1), pp.3-14.

Siponen, M., Vance, A. and Willison, R. 2012. New insights into the problem of software piracy: The effects of neutralization, shame, and moral beliefs. Information & Management, 49 (7-8), 334- 341.

Smallridge, J.L. and Roberts, J.R., 2013. Crime Specific Neutralizations: An Empirical Examination of Four Types of Digital Piracy. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 7(2).

Spangler, T., 2018. Global Piracy in 2017: TV and Music Illegal Activity Rose, While Film Declined. [online] Variety. Available at: https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/piracy-global-2017-tv-music-film-illegal-streaming-1202731243/ [Accessed 3 Jul. 2018].

Strangelove, M., 2015. Post-TV: Piracy, cord-cutting, and the future of television. University of Toronto Press.

Sudler, H., 2013. Effectiveness of anti-piracy technology: Finding appropriate solutions for evolving online piracy. Business Horizons, 56(2), pp.149-157.

Uprichard, E., 2013. Sampling: Bridging probability and non-probability designs. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 16(1), pp.1-11.

Yilmaz, K., 2013. Comparison of quantitative and qualitative research traditions: Epistemological, theoretical, and methodological differences. European Journal of Education, 48(2), pp.311-325.

Yoon, C., 2011. Theory of planned behavior and ethics theory in digital piracy: An integrated model. Journal of business ethics, 100(3), pp.405-417.

Zhang, D., 2015. Illegal File Sharing & The Film Industry. [ebook] University of California, Berkeley. Available at: https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Illegal%20File%20Sharing%20%26%20The%20Film%20Industry.pdf [Accessed 12 Jul. 2018].