The report states that global online piracy costs the U.S. economy at least $29.2 billion in lost revenue each year. It also says digital video piracy reduces revenue to the U.S. content and distribution sectors by between $29.2 billion and $71.0 billion per year, representing a revenue reduction between 11% and 24%.

Using panel data on album sales and piracy activity over time, the paper finds that the effect of illegal downloads on legitimate music sales is statistically indistinguishable from zero for the majority of albums in the sample. The authors note that their longitudinal estimates do not support large revenue losses claimed by industry groups and suggest that sampling and word-of-mouth effects may offset a portion of displaced sales.

This empirical paper studies the 2009 implementation of Sweden’s IPRED anti‑piracy directive and its impact on music sales: "We find that the reform decreased Internet traffic by 16% during the first six months... Under the assumption that half of Internet traffic consists of piracy, this decrease corresponds to a decrease in piracy of 32%." It reports that "During the first six months of the reform, it increased physical music sales by 33%, digital music sales by 46%, and total music sales by 36%." The authors infer: "Our estimates imply a music sales elasticity of piracy of approximately one on the margin and a large causal effect of piracy on music sales" and under a strong assumption conclude that in the absence of piracy, "music sales would have been twice as large in 2009" and that piracy could account for "80% of the drop in music sales between 2000 and 2008."

This meta-analysis combines results from 25 empirical studies estimating the effect of digital piracy on legal sales across music, movies, software and books. The authors conclude that, on average, the literature fails to reject the null hypothesis of no effect of piracy on sales. While some individual studies report negative impacts, the overall mean effect size is small and not statistically different from zero for most product categories.

The study exploits the sudden shutdown of the file hosting site Megaupload as a natural experiment to identify the causal impact of online piracy on box office revenues. Comparing weekly box office revenues before and after the shutdown across countries with different levels of Megaupload penetration, the authors find that the shutdown led to a small but statistically significant increase in box office revenue, concentrated on large-budget movies. The estimated revenue increase corresponds to roughly 2–3% of weekly box office revenues in high-piracy markets.

This NBER working paper (Danaher et al.) examines France’s HADOPI graduated response law. The authors state: "We find that the Hadopi law caused iTunes song and album sales to increase by 22.5% and 25% respectively, relative to other European countries." They interpret this as evidence that reducing piracy can raise legal digital music sales, concluding that "Hadopi appears to have had a positive effect on iTunes sales" particularly for genres and demographics more engaged in file sharing prior to the law.

Analyzing weekly sales and file-sharing data for a large sample of albums, the authors estimate that file sharing has only a limited effect on record sales. Their preferred specifications indicate that, even under assumptions most favorable to the displacement hypothesis, illegal downloads explain at most 20% of the sales decline observed in the early 2000s, and the central estimates are substantially smaller.

The page says that, in a study published in a top peer-reviewed journal, pre-release piracy causes a 19.1 percent decrease in box office revenue compared to piracy that occurs post-release. It also states that movie piracy can cannibalize $1.3 billion in potential box-office revenues annually.

Summarizing empirical work, the article cites a study by Danaher, Smith and Telang: "They have collected 18 distinct studies, the majority of which have been published in peer reviewed journals, on the issue of piracy and its concurrent effect on the entertainment industry. Of these 18 studies, only 3 found that there was no statistical impact on the entertainment industries. Of the remaining 15, every one found that piracy has a significant effect on the revenues of the entertainment industry, including one that found that file sharing was the cause for the collapse of record industry sales from 1998 to 2003." It also notes that a 2013 study of France’s HADOPI anti‑piracy law found "a 20–25% increase in digital music sales" and that an analysis of the EU’s IPRED directive in Sweden found "a 27% increase in CD sales and a 48% increase in digital music sales."

The OECD report distinguishes between physical counterfeits and digital piracy, noting that estimates of revenue losses are highly sensitive to assumptions about substitution rates. It stresses that "not every pirated copy represents a lost sale" and that empirical studies for digital content often find much lower displacement rates than industry-sponsored figures. The report cautions that long-run impacts on companies’ revenue may vary by sector, product type and business model, and should be derived from careful longitudinal analysis rather than simple multiplication of piracy volumes by retail prices.

This 2025 CCIA-commissioned review of the empirical literature on digital video piracy argues that a prominent report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center substantially overstates revenue losses. It states that "even aggressive upper bound estimates of net sales impacts of piracy in the empirical literature, including the papers on net sales impacts cited in the GIPC paper, are about 4%," and notes that a leading meta-analysis "concludes impacts on net sales are not significantly greater than 0%, and the null hypothesis cannot be rejected." The authors emphasize that empirical work finds "consumption of pirated video content is recognized in the empirical literature as driving demand for legitimate consumption of the pirated content by ‘sampling’ effects" and that this beneficial sampling can offset a significant fraction of lost revenue from illicit viewings.

The report says that 29 out of 33 peer-reviewed papers studying the economic impact of piracy find a harmful effect on sales. It also reviews peer-reviewed literature on harm to revenue in legal channels and creative output in the entertainment sector.

While focusing on copyright term and digitization, the paper discusses the broader literature on piracy and music sales. It notes that many studies using panel or difference-in-differences designs find limited or no statistically significant long-run effect of file sharing on industry revenue once other factors, such as changes in consumer preferences and business models, are controlled for. The authors emphasize that the transition to digital distribution and streaming complicates simple narratives about piracy causing large, persistent revenue declines.

In this peer‑reviewed study of UK piracy‑site blocking orders (Danaher et al.), the authors find that restricting access to infringing sites leads some consumers to shift from piracy to legal consumption. They report that blocking 19 major piracy sites in 2013 led to "a 12% increase in the use of legal subscription sites" among affected users and that when 53 sites were blocked in 2014, there was a "significant reduction in overall piracy and a significant increase in subscriptions to legal services." These results imply that when piracy options are constrained, some demand converts into paid consumption, suggesting that piracy had previously been cannibalizing a share of potential legitimate revenue.

In a review of the empirical evidence, RAND finds that "the best available studies suggest that piracy has a negative impact on music sales, but the effect sizes are considerably smaller than those reported in industry submissions." The report also notes that some longitudinal analyses identify offsetting gains from increased live performance income and alternative revenue streams, meaning that the net long-term impact on overall music-industry revenue is more nuanced than simple sales figures imply.

This empirical study uses clickstream data to examine how illegal and legal digital music consumption interact. The authors find that for a large share of users, illegal downloads act as a form of sampling that can increase demand for legal consumption, but they also estimate that "on average, one additional illegal download reduces legitimate purchases by a small, but statistically significant amount." The paper thus documents both a sampling effect and a net negative impact of piracy on revenues in the music industry.

Using a natural experiment related to the staggered introduction of anti-piracy enforcement, this peer-reviewed article finds that increasing the availability of pirated movies reduced DVD sales. The authors report that "piracy had a statistically and economically significant negative effect on DVD sales" and that the decline in sales persisted over time rather than being offset by later purchases, indicating that piracy displaced a portion of legitimate demand instead of merely serving as sampling that boosts later revenue.

BSA’s global software piracy survey estimates that "39 percent of software installed on computers around the world is not properly licensed." It states that unlicensed software use "results in lost revenues for software producers" and gives the example that in countries with high piracy rates, the commercial value of unlicensed software runs into billions of dollars. The report argues that reducing unlicensed use would "generate significant additional revenues" for the software industry and related sectors over time.

Analyzing detailed UK data on music purchases and illegal file-sharing, this article finds that piracy has a negative effect on music sales. The authors estimate that "a 10 percent increase in file-sharing reduces legal music sales by around 3 percent" on average. While they note that some consumers use piracy to discover new music, their econometric results suggest that the displacement of legal purchases outweighs any sampling-driven increase in demand.

The rebuttal argues that the GIPC report overstates revenue losses from digital video piracy. It says even aggressive upper-bound estimates in the empirical literature are about 4%, and cites a leading meta-analysis concluding that the literature fails to reject the null hypothesis of no effects on sales.

A widely cited paper in The Review of Financial Studies examines whether file sharing harmed music sales during the early 2000s. Using individual-level download data and album sales, the authors conclude that "we find no evidence that file sharing is the primary cause of the decline in music sales" and that the estimated effect of downloads on sales is "statistically indistinguishable from zero." They also note that users who engage in more file-sharing tend to be heavier music consumers overall, consistent with a sampling or discovery effect for some segments.

This industry analysis discusses mixed findings in the literature. It notes that while many studies find that piracy displaces some sales, a European Commission‑commissioned study of 2014 consumer behavior data "found that overall, there was no robust statistical evidence that online copyright infringement displaces sales of digital content" for music, books, and games, with the exception of new films. The article highlights controversy that the report was initially not widely publicized because "it turned out that the study found that piracy had no impact on sales — at least in some cases." It contrasts that with other research showing significant negative effects, indicating that outcomes vary by sector and context.

The paper finds that TV subscriptions decrease and internet-tier upgrades increase, resulting in a 1% reduction in payments to multiple-system operators. This provides evidence that piracy can reduce payments to firms in related distribution channels.

This article studies online piracy using mathematical modeling of piracy contagion. It is not an empirical revenue study, but it is relevant background showing that digital piracy spreads through social influence rather than direct market transactions alone.

A widely cited meta-analysis published in 2020 concluded that the literature does not reject the null hypothesis of no effect on sales for digital piracy, indicating that aggregate empirical findings are mixed rather than uniformly negative.