T paper analyzes the optimal choice of pricing schedules and technological deterrence levels in a market with digital piracy where sellers can influence the degree of piracy by implementing digital rights management (DRM) systems. It is shown that a monopolist’s optimal pricing schedule can be characterized as a simple combination of the zero-piracy pricing schedule and a piracy-indifferent pri...

Digital piracy has been shown to be an emerging societal problem. However, research has demonstrated limited techniques that effectively combat digital piracy. The purpose of the present study is to examine the utility of computer viruses in deterring digital piracy. The findings from responses to a survey of college students revealed that fear of computer viruses may influence respondents’ int...

The aim of this paper is to test the hypothesis that software piracy rats are lower in more intelligent nations. Thus, we econometrically estimate the effect of national IQ on software piracy rates, using data for 102 nations for the year 2011. Our findings offer strong support for the assertion that intelligence is inversely related to the software piracy rates. After controlling for the poten...

Software piracy has recently gained enormous attention, not only in the context of P2P-networks. As one countermeasure against software piracy, publishers have been implementing Digital Rights Management systems such as technical copy protection measures into their software products. This paper examines the impact of different technical copy protection measures and Internet services usage on so...

Recent papers have argued that a monopoly firm might be able to maximize its profit by allowing some customers to steal its product. In particular, with network externalities, it is claimed that allowing piracy can be profitable because it increases the user base of the product and raises the willingness-to-pay of other customers. In this paper we analyze these claims when the producer can free...

Digital piracy, the sharing files of music on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks has been cited as the key threat to the music industry by distorting promoting plans of albums (Billboard.biz, 2009). To combat widespread digital piracy on file-sharing networks, the content industries have employed diverse anti-piracy strategies including pollution technologies and stronger copyright legislation for mus...

The copyright industries continued to confront very high piracy rates and losses in Romania during 2001 because of systemic inaction by government authorities, a pattern that has repeated itself over the past few years. Improvements made to the copyright and criminal laws in the mid1990s, combined with some cooperation from the police for some industries, still have not been enough to reduce ra...

Software piracy represents a major damage to the moral fabric associated with the respect of intellectual property. The rate of software piracy appears to be increasing globally, suggesting that additional research that uses new approaches is necessary to evaluate the problem. The study remedies previous econometric and methodological shortcomings by applying Bayesian, robust and evolutionary c...

D goods lend themselves to versioning but also suffer from piracy losses. This paper develops a pricing model for digital experience goods in a segmented market and explores the optimality of sampling as a piracy-mitigating strategy. Consumers are aware of the true fit of an experience good to their tastes only after consumption, and as piracy offers an additional (albeit illegal) consumption o...

Music piracy, once a novel issue covered in technology magazines, has become an issue of considerable importance and is discussed regularly in mainstream media. Despite the strategies and alternatives aimed at reducing piracy behaviour, the phenomenon remains a major issue for the industry. This paper continues from previous work by testing a further section of the previously proposed model usi...