Movie piracy and displaced sales in Europe: Evidence from six countries

摘要

This paper presents estimates of lost movie sales due to unpaid movie consumption. We are the first to provide estimates that are representative of the internet-using population and cover multiple countries. Based on an online questionnaire with almost 30,000 respondents, we document that one unpaid (first) viewing of a movie displaces about 0.37 units of paid viewings. Using a back-of-the-envelope calculation, we show that this implies that unpaid movie viewings reduced movie sales in Europe by about 4.4% during the sample period. Lost sales differ substantially by country: they are in the range of 1.65% for Germany and 10.4% for Spain. We also document that 94% of lost sales are due to unpaid viewings by a small group of only 20% of consumers. This implies that well targeted policies have the most potential to prevent damages of movie piracy. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.