Sivan, Smith and Telang (2014)

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1. Relationship between protection (subject matter/term/scope) and supply/economic development/growth/welfare 2. Relationship between creative process and protection - what motivates creators (e.g. attribution; control; remuneration; time allocation)? 3. Harmony of interest assumption between authors and publishers (creators and producers/investors) 4. Effects of protection on industry structure (e.g. oligopolies; competition; economics of superstars; business models; technology adoption) 5. Understanding consumption/use (e.g. determinants of unlawful behaviour; user-generated content; social media)

A. Nature and Scope of exclusive rights (hyperlinking/browsing; reproduction right) B. Exceptions (distinguish innovation and public policy purposes; open-ended/closed list; commercial/non-commercial distinction) C. Mass digitisation/orphan works (non-use; extended collective licensing) D. Licensing and Business models (collecting societies; meta data; exchanges/hubs; windowing; crossborder availability) E. Fair remuneration (levies; copyright contracts) F. Enforcement (quantifying infringement; criminal sanctions; intermediary liability; graduated response; litigation and court data; commercial/non-commercial distinction; education and awareness)

Source Details

Sivan, Smith and Telang (2014)
Title: Do Search Engines Influence Media Piracy? Evidence from a Randomized Field Study
Author(s): Sivan, L., Smith, M.D., Telang, R.
Year: 2014
Citation: Sivan et al. (2014). Do Search Engines Influence Media Piracy? Evidence from a Randomized Field Study. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2495591
Link(s): Definitive , Open Access
Key Related Studies:
Discipline:
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About the Data
Data Description: The data resulted from two experiments conducted online utilising a custom-built search engine and a post-experiment questionnaire.

In the first experiment, participants were selected from a representative panel of the U.S. general population (representative sample of the population). In the second experiment, participants were selected from a panel of college-aged participants (college-aged students’ sample). All participants were selected through an independent company maintaining large survey panels. From approximately 1,000 participants that were invited to participate in the study, only 235 completed the task as instructed, and 196 actually qualified for the study by completing the post-experiment questionnaire.
In both experiments, participants had to choose (from a list of 50 alternatives) and find a movie they wanted to watch using the researchers’ custom-built search engine. The custom-built search engine allowed the researchers to manipulate the rank and positioning of pirate and legal links in the search results. Thus, using the search engine, participants had displayed in their search results one of three randomly assigned conditions: one control condition, with the same results from other major research engines; and two treatment conditions, with one artificially promoting legal links and other promoting infringing links. In the second experiment, the researchers also added two additional treatment conditions to measure milder legal and milder infringing search manipulations.
The post-experiment questionnaire included demographic questions (e.g., gender and age) as well as questions about the source from which participants acquired the movie, its price and their media consumption preferences.

Data Type: Primary data
Secondary Data Sources:
Data Collection Methods:
Data Analysis Methods:
Industry(ies):
Country(ies):
Cross Country Study?: No
Comparative Study?: No
Literature review?: No
Government or policy study?: No
Time Period(s) of Collection:
Funder(s):
  • Motion Picture Association of America

Abstract

“There is an ongoing public policy debate regarding the role search engines can play in the fight against intellectual property theft. However, for any sensible policy discussion it must first be the case that search engine results influence consumer piracy choices, and there is very little empirical evidence one way or the other on this question. The goal of this research is to use a randomized field study to analyze whether search results can influence consumers choices for infringing versus legal consumption channels. To do this, we design a customized search engine that allows us to experimentally manipulate pirated and legal links in users’ search results. We then conduct separate experiments on a general population of users and on college-aged users where we randomly assign users to a control condition or to separate treatment conditions where infringing sites or legal sites are artificially promoted in the search results. Our data show that relative to the non-manipulated (control) condition, the presence of pirate or legal links in search results strongly influences the behavior of both the general and college-aged populations: users are more likely to choose a legal option to acquire the movie when legal sites are promoted, and users are more likely to choose a pirate option when piracy links are promoted. By analyzing users’ initial search terms, we also find evidence that users who initially intend to pirate are more likely to purchase legally when legal links are promoted and that users who initially intend to consume legally are more likely to pirate when pirate links are promoted. Together our results suggest that reducing the prominence of pirated links can be a viable policy option in the fight against intellectual property theft.”

Main Results of the Study

The study suggests that:
1. The prominence of links to legal or pirated channels can have great influence on users’ subsequent decision about consuming infringing or legal content. 2. Users tend to consume more legal content when links to lawful channels are shown in search results. On the other hand, users tend to consume more illegal content when links to pirated channels are shown in search results. This situation applies for both general population of users and younger (college-aged) users as well as for both undecided users and users with a stated preference for legal or infringing content.

Policy Implications as Stated By Author

From a policy perspective, the authors suggest that a viable solution for fighting intellectual property theft is to reduce the prominence of piracy links in search results on search engines. However, they highlight that more research is necessary to shape such a policy.



Coverage of Study

Coverage of Fundamental Issues
Issue Included within Study
Relationship between protection (subject matter/term/scope) and supply/economic development/growth/welfare
Relationship between creative process and protection - what motivates creators (e.g. attribution; control; remuneration; time allocation)?
Harmony of interest assumption between authors and publishers (creators and producers/investors)
Effects of protection on industry structure (e.g. oligopolies; competition; economics of superstars; business models; technology adoption)
Understanding consumption/use (e.g. determinants of unlawful behaviour; user-generated content; social media)
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Coverage of Evidence Based Policies
Issue Included within Study
Nature and Scope of exclusive rights (hyperlinking/browsing; reproduction right)
Exceptions (distinguish innovation and public policy purposes; open-ended/closed list; commercial/non-commercial distinction)
Mass digitisation/orphan works (non-use; extended collective licensing)
Licensing and Business models (collecting societies; meta data; exchanges/hubs; windowing; crossborder availability)
Fair remuneration (levies; copyright contracts)
Enforcement (quantifying infringement; criminal sanctions; intermediary liability; graduated response; litigation and court data; commercial/non-commercial distinction; education and awareness)
Green-tick.png

Datasets

Sample size: 196
Level of aggregation: Individual
Period of material under study: