Does the Nature of Piracy and Competition Matter?

Yuanzhu Lu () and Sougata Poddar ()

No 2015-04, Working Papers from Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics

Abstract: We explore whether the nature of piracy or the counterfeiting activity and the competition between the copyright holder and the pirate(s) matter in a given regime of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) protection. Generally, the nature of piracy can be of two types, commercial and end-user; and the nature of competition between copyright holder and if the pirate is commercial can be either in price or quantity depending on the pirated good. We find irrespective of the nature of piracy or competition, when the consumers’ tastes are sufficiently diverse and IPR protection is weak, it is profitable for the copyright holder to accommodate the pirate(s), while deter the pirate(s) in all other situations. The relationship between the quality of pirated good and piracy rate can be monotonic or non-monotonic. Piracy is more likely to survive under commercial piracy than under end-user piracy. The relationship between private and public anti-piracy measures is non-monotonic.

Keywords: IPR protection; private copyright protection; piracy rate; product quality; commercial piracy; end-user piracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 D43 L13 L86 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2015-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-cul, nep-ict, nep-ind, nep-ipr, nep-pr~ and nep-mkt
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