Limitations, future research and conclusion
As in any study, this research has some limitations linked
mainly: to the adapted scales; to the testing of two SBMS; and
to the fact that all respondents came from one country,
limiting the generalizability of results. Also, willingness to try
is not a measure of consumers’ actual purchase behavior:
some people choose different legal alternatives (such as
purchasing a CD in a store or downloading a single song from
an online shop) rather than subscribing to a music service,
while others do not purchase music at all (Sinha and Mandel,
2008). Finally, this study concentrated solely on Internet users
who might be willing to try SBMS: whether participants also
uploaded, shared or downloaded files from peer-to-peer
network was not explored.
Future research could include a wider array of SBMS (such as
the French Deezer and the American Rdio); it could also be
replicated across different countries to validate the results for
different populations; finally, it could experimentally study
consumers’ SBMS trial intentions and adoption decisions based
on broadband access, different price levels and peer influence.
Our findings underline the importance of introducing
ethical decision-making theories into attitude-intention
models of digital music piracy behaviors and highlight the
need to foster consumers’ involvement and knowledge with
SBMS to curb, even if partially, online music piracy.