Follow the Money: Online Piracy and Self-Regulation in the Advertising Industry
34 Pages Posted: 15 Mar 2018
There are 2 versions of this paper
Follow the Money: Online Piracy and Self-Regulation in the Advertising Industry
Date Written: January 30, 2018
Abstract
In this paper, we study the effects of a self-regulatory effort, orchestrated by the European Commission, that aims to reduce advertising revenues for publishers of copyright infringing content. Historical data lets us follow how the third-party advertising and tracking services associated with a large number of piracy websites and a corresponding set of legitimate “placebo” websites change after the agreement to self-regulate went in place. We find that larger EU-based advertisers comply with the initiative and reduce their connections with piracy websites. We do not find reductions for other non-advertising services that track consumers, which has potentially important implications for the efficiency of targeted advertising.
Keywords: piracy, copyright enforcement, online advertising, natural experiment
JEL Classification: K400, L500, L800
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation