nep-cul 2014-10-22 papers

on Cultural Economics

Issue of 2014–10–22
one paper chosen by
Roberto Zanola, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale

Internet piracy and book sales: a field experiment By Wojciech Hardy; Michał Krawczyk; Joanna Tyrowicz

Internet piracy and book sales: a field experiment

By:	Wojciech Hardy (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Michał Krawczyk (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Joanna Tyrowicz (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw)
Abstract:	We report the results of an experimental study analyzing the effects of Internet piracy on book sales. We conducted a year-long controlled large-scale field experiment with pre-treatment pair matching. Half of the book titles received experimental treatment, in which a specialized agency would immediately remove any unauthorized copy appearing on the Internet. For the other half we merely registered such occurrences, but no countermeasures were taken. For all the titles we obtained print and e-book sales statistics from the publishers. We find that removal of unauthorized copies was an effective method of curbing piracy, but this had no bearing on legal sales.
Keywords:	digital piracy, e-books, field experiment
JEL:	C93 D12 K42 L82 O34
Date:	2014
URL:	https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2014-23

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