http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/entertainment_industry+piracy_economics+engl_105 PennTags Feed http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/35094 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/35094 <p>This is a publication by the <span class="MenuNormal"> Ifo Institute for Economic Research located in Munich. The authors are Martin Peitz and Patrick Waelbroeck. Essentially this is a detailed economic analysis of various models concerning the effects of digital copying and secifically pirated digital copies. </span><span class="MenuNormal">The paper specifically looks at filesharing networks and analyzes the economic impact. </span><span class="MenuNormal">The authors analyze the common claim by record industries and "affected" industries, that unauthorized copying leads to lost profits. The authors present various articles by other reputable sources, and provide analyses of them. In some situations firms do indeed lose profits either directly attributable to piracy or indirectly. However, the publication also cites situations under which digital copies actually increase firms' profits and social benefit all together. Among other things, the paper also provides specific examples of types of goods and state whether producers of these goods benefit from digital copies.&nbsp; </span></p> <p>This source is very important to my research in a number of ways. It provides a third party outlook on the impact of unauthorized digital copies. While some of the issues raised by this publication complicate my research paper, the publication does provide some analyses which provide support for my thesis that government should suspend sites that host/index unauthorized copies of copyrighted content. For example, it mentions that in a certain setup firms do suffer from the existence of copies. Also it talks about how copies limit the monopoly-power of the firm, which in the long run detracts both from the producer surplus and the social surplus as a whole. Careful consideration and analysis of this source will help address my thesis question more fully.</p>