Controlling digital piracy via domain name system blocks: A natural experiment

Filipa Reis, Miguel Godinho de Matos and Pedro Ferreira

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024, vol. 218, issue C, 89-103

Abstract: We study the impact of batch DNS filtering of copyright-infringing websites, a novel administrative-based process that does not require judicial involvement. In partnership with a large telecommunication provider, we measure the impact of this intervention on piracy activity and the legal alternatives integrated into households' media subscription bundles, an aspect largely unexplored in prior literature. We find a significant reduction in Internet traffic, which proxies piracy activity. However, we do not observe statistically significant changes in the consumption of the legal alternatives under consideration, only a slight increase in TV viewership. To further understand these outcomes, we examine the heterogeneity of these results based on households' pre-block usage intensity of digital piracy and demographic characteristics. Our work contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of piracy control strategies and informs policy makers and industry practitioners about the benefits and limitations of DNS-based website blocking.

Keywords: Digital piracy; Cultural protection policy; Natural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268123004420
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:218:y:2024:i:c:p:89-103

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.12.005

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().