Piracy and Music Sales: The Effects of An Anti-Piracy Law

Adermon, Adrian; Liang, Che-Yuan

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1752224

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Piracy and Music Sales: The Effects of An Anti-Piracy Law

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Forthcoming

28 Pages Posted: 2 Feb 2011 Last revised: 22 Apr 2014

See all articles by Adrian Adermon

Che-Yuan Liang

Uppsala University - Department of Economics

Date Written: January 31, 2011

Abstract

The implementation of a copyright protection reform in Sweden in April 2009 suddenly increased the risk of being caught and punished for illegal file sharing. This paper investigates the impact of the reform on illegal file sharing and music sales using a difference-in-differences approach with Norway and Finland as control groups. We find that the reform decreased Internet traffic by 16 percent and increased music sales by 36 percent during the first six months. Pirated music therefore seems to be a strong substitute to legal music. However, the reform effects almost completely disappeared after six months.

Keywords: copyright protection, anti-piracy law, piracy, file sharing, music sales

JEL Classification: D04, D12, K11, K42, M48

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Adermon, Adrian and Liang, Che-Yuan, Piracy and Music Sales: The Effects of An Anti-Piracy Law (January 31, 2011). Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1752224 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1752224