Internet “piracy” and book sales: a field experiment

Wojciech Hardy, Michał Krawczyk () and Joanna Tyrowicz
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Wojciech Hardy: University of Warsaw
Michał Krawczyk: University of Warsaw

Journal of the Economic Science Association, 2024, vol. 10, issue 2, No 16, 457-471

Abstract: Abstract The widespread Internet “piracy” continues to fuel the debate about business models impervious to copyright infringement. We studied the displacement effects of “piracy” on sales in the book industry. We conducted a year-long large-scale field experiment: in the treatment group, we removed unauthorised copies appearing on the Internet and observed the sales data, whereas in the control group, we simply observed sales. We were able to substantially curb the unauthorised distribution, which resulted in a small, positive effect on sales. While using classical analysis we found it not to be significantly different from zero, a Bayesian approach using previous “piracy” studies to generate a prior led to the conclusion that protecting from piracy resulted in a significant sales boost of about 9 per cent.

Keywords: Digital piracy; Copyright infringement; Sales displacement; Books; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D12 K42 L82 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Working Paper: Internet piracy and book sales: A field experiment (2014)
Working Paper: Internet piracy and book sales: a field experiment (2014)
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DOI: 10.1007/s40881-024-00171-9

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