MIS Quarterly

The Effect of Piracy Website Blocking on Consumer Behavior

Brett Danaher · Jonathan Hersh · Michael D. Smith · Rahul Telang · 2020

Finds that coordinated blocking of multiple piracy sites can meaningfully shift behavior toward legal consumption channels.

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Abstract

In this study, the authors examine what drives the success or failure of various supply-side anti-piracy enforcement actions, such as piracy website blocking. They analyze three court-ordered events affecting consumers in the United Kingdom:

ISPs blocking 53 video piracy sites in 2014
ISPs blocking 19 piracy sites in 2013
The blocking of a single dominant site, The Pirate Bay, in 2012

Key Findings

Blocking 53 sites in 2014 caused treated users to decrease piracy and increase legal subscription site usage by 7–12%, along with growth in new paid subscriptions.
Blocking 19 sites in 2013 produced similar results.
Blocking only The Pirate Bay in 2012 led to no increase in legal site use, but did drive users to other unblocked piracy and VPN sites.
Increased search and learning costs of finding new piracy channels help explain why blocking multiple sites is more effective than blocking a single dominant one.

Implication

To meaningfully increase legal IP use in the presence of a dominant piracy channel, enforcement must block multiple piracy sites to raise the overall cost of accessing pirated content — a nuance often missed in previous literature.

How to cite this paper

APA

Danaher, B., Hersh, J., Smith, M. D., & Telang, R. (2020). The Effect of Piracy Website Blocking on Consumer Behavior. MIS Quarterly. https://misq.umn.edu/misq/article-abstract/44/2/631/452/The-Effect-of-Piracy-Website-Blocking-on-Consumer?redirectedFrom=fulltext

BibTeX

@article{danaher2020effect,
  title   = {The Effect of Piracy Website Blocking on Consumer Behavior},
  author  = {Danaher, Brett and Hersh, Jonathan and Smith, Michael D. and Telang, Rahul},
  journal = {MIS Quarterly},
  year    = {2020},
  url     = {https://misq.umn.edu/misq/article-abstract/44/2/631/452/The-Effect-of-Piracy-Website-Blocking-on-Consumer?redirectedFrom=fulltext}
}

Publication details

Venue	MIS Quarterly
Year	2020
Authors	Brett Danaher, Jonathan Hersh, Michael D. Smith, Rahul Telang
Published version	https://misq.umn.edu/misq/article-abstract/44/2/631/452/The-Effect-of-Piracy-Website-Blocking-on-Consumer?redirectedFrom=fulltext

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