digitalpiracy_digital piracy 30/09/2013 07:13 Page 4
Movie revenues not
boosted by
Megaupload
shutdown
n academic study comparing
box office revenues before
and after the shutdown of
popular file hosting platform
Megaupload.com has found that
box office revenues of a majority of
movies did not increase after the
shutdown.
The study – Piracy and Movie
Revenues: Evidence from
Megaupload: A Tale of the Long
Tail? – was undertaken by
researchers in Munich and
Copenhagen, and found that while
for a mid-range of movies, the
effect of the shutdown is even negative, only large blockbusters could
benefit from the absence of
Megaupload. “We argue that this is
due to social network effects,
where online piracy acts as a
mechanism to spread information
about a good from consumers with
low willingness to pay to consumers with high willingness to
pay. This information-spreading
effect of illegal downloads
seems to be especially
important for movies
with smaller audiences,” they say.
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