The most recent overall study of this that I know of is File-Sharing and Copyright, by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf.
The advent of file sharing has considerably weakened effective copyright protection. Today, more than 60% of internet traffic consists of consumers sharing music, movies, books and games. Yet, despite the popularity of the new technology, file sharing has not undermined the incentives of authors to produce new works. We argue that the effect of file sharing has been muted for three reasons. (1) The cannibalization of sales that is due to file sharing is more modest than many observers assume. Empirical work suggests that in music, no more than 20% of the recent decline in sales is due to sharing. (2) File sharing increases the demand for complements to protected works, raising, for instance, the demand for concerts and concert prices. The sale of more expensive complements has added to artists’ incomes. (3) In many creative industries, monetary incentives play a reduced role in motivating authors to remain creative. Data on the supply of new works are consistent with the argument that file sharing did not discourage authors and publishers. Since the advent of file sharing, the production of music, books, and movies has increased sharply.
For my and Ahto Apajalahti’s book Jokapiraatinoikeus (“every pirate’s right”, a reference to the Nordic legal doctrine of everyman’s right) I also a collected a number of statistics showing no decline in the production of works, and for many fields, no or only a moderate decline in sales, as well. That suggests that the overall utility gain of illict file-sharing is quite considerable. Unfortunately our book is only available in Finnish, but Against Intellectual Monopoly, which we cited frequently, makes many similar points and covers a lot of the same ground as we did.
I also a collected a number of statistics showing no decline in the production of works, and for many fields, no or only a moderate decline in sales, as well
Were you doing this with your bottom line already written?
I can’t deny that I was hoping/expecting to see the results that I got, and I did attempt to put a favorable spin on even some results which could have been interpreted as unfavorable. But on the other hand, I did also honestly report the disfavorable results, and I had arrived at this position because I’d seen a bunch of similar evidence before I started writing the book. I had been a proponent of strong copyright enforcement before, until I read an early draft of Against Intellectual Monopoly which made me drastically revise my view. If the evidence had been completely unlike what I’d expected, I would have been honest about it and revised my view again.
Also, some of the evidence I found before and during the writing process made me revise my position about commercial copyright away from the official party line. At the time of writing, the Finnish Pirate Party—which I was the spokesman of—officially advocated limiting the duration of commerical copyright to 5-10 years from the creation of the work. I became increasingly convinced that it would be better to either have a duration of 15 years or a two-stage scheme. The two-stage scheme would involve a very brief commercial monopoly, followed by an extended period during which others could resell or build on the original work without acquiring permission from the original creator, but still had to pay royalties for it. Either way, non-commercial use, including file-sharing, would be permitted from day one.
The most recent overall study of this that I know of is File-Sharing and Copyright, by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf.
For my and Ahto Apajalahti’s book Jokapiraatinoikeus (“every pirate’s right”, a reference to the Nordic legal doctrine of everyman’s right) I also a collected a number of statistics showing no decline in the production of works, and for many fields, no or only a moderate decline in sales, as well. That suggests that the overall utility gain of illict file-sharing is quite considerable. Unfortunately our book is only available in Finnish, but Against Intellectual Monopoly, which we cited frequently, makes many similar points and covers a lot of the same ground as we did.
Were you doing this with your bottom line already written?
Good question.
I can’t deny that I was hoping/expecting to see the results that I got, and I did attempt to put a favorable spin on even some results which could have been interpreted as unfavorable. But on the other hand, I did also honestly report the disfavorable results, and I had arrived at this position because I’d seen a bunch of similar evidence before I started writing the book. I had been a proponent of strong copyright enforcement before, until I read an early draft of Against Intellectual Monopoly which made me drastically revise my view. If the evidence had been completely unlike what I’d expected, I would have been honest about it and revised my view again.
Also, some of the evidence I found before and during the writing process made me revise my position about commercial copyright away from the official party line. At the time of writing, the Finnish Pirate Party—which I was the spokesman of—officially advocated limiting the duration of commerical copyright to 5-10 years from the creation of the work. I became increasingly convinced that it would be better to either have a duration of 15 years or a two-stage scheme. The two-stage scheme would involve a very brief commercial monopoly, followed by an extended period during which others could resell or build on the original work without acquiring permission from the original creator, but still had to pay royalties for it. Either way, non-commercial use, including file-sharing, would be permitted from day one.