Blog Post: The Truth About Piracy

Blog Post: The Truth About Piracy

By Brett Danaher, Michael D. Smith and Rahul Telang
February 2, 2016

How can you determine the truth about the impact of piracy on sales? Economic theory is inconclusive on this question. You can make a perfectly valid theoretical argument that in most cases piracy will hurt legal sales (after all, when something is available for free it is generally harder to convince people to pay for it). But you can also make a perfectly valid theoretical argument that piracy will have no effect on legal sales, or could even cause legal sales to increase (because of increased awareness for the content or artist). So what should you do when the theory is inconclusive? Study the data, of course.

Read more here: https://techpolicyinstitute.org/2016/02/02/the-truth-about-piracy/

+ posts

Amy V. Smorodin is Vice President of Communications and External Relations at the Technology Policy Institute. Prior to joining TPI, she was Vice President of Communications at The Progress & Freedom Foundation. Smorodin also served as a public policy communications specialist at the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), a global tech industry association. She began her media and public relations career at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where she acted as liaison between families, law enforcement, and the media. Smorodin attended American University in Washington, DC.
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
          
asmorodin at techpolicyinstitute.org

Share This Article

View More Publications by

Recommended Reads

Social Networking Privacy Practices – Giving Behavioral Advertising a Good Name

Fear of Drug Information

If you like the Do Not Call List, should you want a Do Not Track List?

Explore More Topics

Antitrust and Competition 178
Artificial Intelligence 29
Big Data 20
Blockchain 29
Broadband 381
China 2
Content Moderation 15
Economics and Methods 35
Economics of Digitization 14
Evidence-Based Policy 18
Free Speech 19
Infrastructure 1
Innovation 2
Intellectual Property 56
Miscellaneous 334
Privacy and Security 136
Regulation 9
Trade 2
Uncategorized 4

Related Articles

Technology Policy Institute Releases Tech Policy Recommendations For the Trump Administration

Tech Policy Roadmap for the Trump Administration: Evidence-Based Innovation Recommendations

Citizens Around the World Have Similar Data Privacy Preferences, At Least Relatively

Freedom of Speech in the Digital Age with Professor Jeff Kosseff

Privacy Preferences Differ by Gender and Age, But Not by Income

Data Storage: Here, There, Anywhere?

Do People Around the World Care Where Their Data Are Stored?

Jane Horvath on Privacy Policy

Sign Up for Updates

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.