Piracy as an ethical decision

Martyna Kobus and Michal Krawczyk

No 2013-22, Working Papers from Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

Abstract: We consider a monopolist producer of information goods that may be subject to unauthorized copying. The key feature of our model is that we allow consumers to have ethical concerns based on equity theory that may reduce their utility of such a copy. We derive the formulas describing demand for the product. We find that piracy reduces prices and producers' profit, an effect that can be limited by such measures as copyright enforcement (proxied by expected value of punishment for piracy) and anti-piracy campaigns. Welfare effects are also analyzed and generally turn out to be ambiguous.

Keywords: digital piracy; copyright protection; equity theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D42 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-cul and nep-iue
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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http://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/inf/wyd/WP/WNE_WP107.pdf First version, 2013 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:war:wpaper:2013-22

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