000042015 000__ 01986cam\a22002535i\4500 000042015 001__ 42015 000042015 003__ SzGeWIPO 000042015 005__ 20240708145855.0 000042015 008__ 200624s2020\\\\sz\\\\\\r\\\\\000\0\eng\d 000042015 040__ $$aSzGeWIPO$$beng$$erda 000042015 041__ $$aeng 000042015 1001_ $$aDanaher, Brett 000042015 1001_ $$aWaldfogel, Joel 000042015 24503 $$aReel Piracy :$$bThe Effect of Online Film Piracy on International Box Office Sales 000042015 264_1 $$a[Cambridge, Massachusetts] :$$bBerkman Center for Internet & Society,$$c2020. 000042015 300__ $$a28 pages 000042015 336__ $$atext$$btxt$$2rdacontent 000042015 337__ $$aunmediated$$bn$$2rdamedia 000042015 338__ $$avolume$$bnc$$2rdacarrier 000042015 520__ $$aHollywood films are generally released first in the United States and then later abroad, with some variation in lags across films and countries. With the growth in movie piracy since the appearance of BitTorrent in 2003, films have become available through illegal piracy immediately after release in the US, while they are not available for legal viewing abroad until their foreign premieres in each country. We make use of this variation in international release lags to ask whether longer lags – which facilitate more local pre-release piracy – depress theatrical box office receipts, particularly after the widespread adoption of BitTorrent. We find that longer release windows are associated with decreased box office returns, even after controlling for film and country fixed effects. This relationship is much stronger in contexts where piracy is more prevalent: after BitTorrent’s adoption and in heavily-pirated genres. Our findings indicate that, as a lower bound, international box office returns in our sample were at least 7% lower than they would have been in the absence of pre-release piracy. By contrast, we do not see evidence of elevated sales displacement in US box office revenue following the adoption of BitTorrent, and we suggest that delayed legal availability of the content abroad may drive the losses to piracy. 000042015 650_0 $$aFilesharing 000042015 650_0 $$aPiracy 000042015 650_0 $$aBox office 000042015 650_0 $$aFilm industry 000042015 650_0 $$aBitTorrent 000042015 85641 $$uhttps://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1986299$$yView this resource 000042015 904__ $$aJournal article 000042015 980__ $$aBIB