Do Search Engines Influence Media Piracy? Evidence from a Randomized Field Study

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