Journal publication referenced in video:
Sarah J. Frick, Deborah Fletcher, Austin C. Smith, Pirate and chill: The effect of netflix on illegal streaming, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 209, 2023, Pages 334-347, ISSN 0167-2681, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.03.013. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268123000793) Abstract: Over 188 million people in the United States use a subscription video streaming service, yet digital piracy remains prevalent and costs the U.S. economy an estimated $29.2 billion annually. This paper investigates the relationship between a movie’s availability on Netflix, the largest video subscription service, and intent to illegally stream the movie. We leverage a contract dispute that caused Epix (a cable network company) to move all its movies from Netflix to Hulu, representing a substantial decrease in the legal streaming availability of these movies. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that reducing legal streaming access via the removal of Epix movies from Netflix results in a 20% increase in piracy intent relative to movies that remained on Netflix, as measured by Google search volume. This study contributes to the understanding of the substitution between legal streaming services and movie piracy and has implications for content owners deciding what platform to offer their movie on. Keywords: Piracy; Online streaming; Digital goods; Netflix; Google searches
That’s based on the false assumption that if pirated materials weren’t available, people would then be forced to buy them. That’s not true, they just don’t buy them. If someone has no intention to spend money your content, you aren’t losing anything when they find it for free.
Their number also makes no sense if you look at the previous figure “Over 188 million people in the United States use a subscription video streaming service”. Average of 10 bucks a month makes 1.8 billion revenue per month, which means the bring in roughly 21.6 billion per year in revenue… Are they suggesting that MORE people choose piracy over streaming services? That feels like a ludicrous claim. More likely they are estimating the number of “illegal downloads” and assigning the price to buy a digital copy instead… Like if piracy was impossible the people that do it would be buying digital copies instead of signing up for streaming services.
And that is all before you look at your point, that a vast majority of the “illegal downloads” they are likely claiming would have never been sales, they would have just been people that never consumed their media.