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/
Amy V. Smorodin was 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.
