Content Provision Strategies in the Presence of Content Piracy.

Author List: Johar, Monica S.; Kumar, Nanda; Mookerjee, Vijay S.;
Information Systems Research, 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3, Page 960-975.
We consider a publisher that earns advertising revenue while providing content to serve a heterogeneous population of consumers. The consumers derive benefit from consuming content but suffer from delivery delays. A publisher's content provision strategy comprises two decisions: (a) the content quality (affecting consumption benefit) and (b) the content distribution delay (affecting consumption cost). The focus here is on how a publisher should choose the content provision strategy in the presence of a content pirate such as a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. Our study sheds light on how a publisher could leverage a pirate's presence to increase profits, even though the pirate essentially encroaches on the demand for the publisher's content. We find that a publisher should sometimes decrease the delivery speed but increase quality in the presence of a pirate (a quality focused strategy). At other times, a distribution focused strategy is better; namely, increase delivery speed, but lower quality. In most cases, however, we show that the publisher should improve at least one dimension of content provision (quality or delay) in the presence of a pirate.
Keywords: content piracy; content provision and distribution; delivery delay; P2P networks
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List of Topics

#201 0.306 piracy goods digital property intellectual rights protection presence legal consumption music consumers enforcement publisher pirate producers policies copyright provision profits
#19 0.276 content providers sharing incentive delivery provider net incentives internet service neutrality broadband allow capacity congestion revenue cost efficient enhanced provides
#112 0.091 services service network effects optimal online pricing strategies model provider provide externalities providing base providers fee complementary demand offer derive
#74 0.072 high low level levels increase associated related characterized terms study focus weak hand choose general lower best predicted conditions implications
#115 0.071 quality different servqual service high-quality difference used quantity importance use measure framework impact assurance better include means van dimensions assessing
#212 0.063 business digital strategy value transformation economy technologies paper creation digitization strategies environment focus net-enabled services processes insights challenges key response
#23 0.052 channel distribution demand channels sales products long travel tail new multichannel available product implications strategy allows internet revenue technologies times