Copyright Bombshell: New Study Finds Megaupload’s File-Sharing Supported Box Office
from The Daily Bell:
A new paper suggests that box office revenues were negatively impacted after the shutdown of Megaupload. The dip in revenues was most visible for average size and smaller films. According to the researchers this may have been caused by the loss of word-of-mouth promotion by people who used the popular file-hosting site to share movies. For blockbuster movies the Megaupload shutdown had the opposite effect. In common with every file-sharing service, Megaupload was used by some of its members to host copyright-infringing movies. For this reason the MPAA was one of the main facilitators of the Megaupload investigation, which ultimately led to the shutdown of the company in January. The movie industry was quick to praise the government’s actions, but a new report suggests that Megaupload’s demise actually resulted in lower box office revenues. – Torrent Freak
Dominant Social Theme: Copyright infringement steals the very bread out of the artist’s mouth.
Free-Market Analysis: It is common knowledge that if one copies intellectual property, one is stealing. Only crazy libertarians and crackpot anarchocapitalists would ever adopt a belief that helping oneself to intellectual property was not a criminal offense.
2012-11-27 05:55:15
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