IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jemstr/v19y2010i2p333-373.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Peer‐to‐Peer File Sharing and the Market for Digital Information Goods

Author

Listed:
  • Ramon Casadesus‐Masanell
  • Andres Hervas‐Drane

Abstract

We study competitive interaction between two alternative models of digital content distribution over the Internet: peer‐to‐peer (p2p) file sharing and centralized client–server distribution. We present microfoundations for a stylized model of p2p file sharing where all peers are endowed with standard preferences and show that the endogenous structure of the network is conducive to sharing by a significant number of peers, even if sharing is costlier than freeriding. We build on this model of p2p to analyze the optimal strategy of a profit‐maximizing firm, such as Apple, that offers content available at positive prices. We characterize the size of the p2p network as a function of the firm's pricing strategy, and show that the firm may be better off setting high prices, allowing the network to survive, and that the p2p network may work more efficiently in the presence of the firm than in its absence.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramon Casadesus‐Masanell & Andres Hervas‐Drane, 2010. "Peer‐to‐Peer File Sharing and the Market for Digital Information Goods," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 333-373, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:19:y:2010:i:2:p:333-373
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9134.2010.00254.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2010.00254.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2010.00254.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    2. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Pankaj Ghemawat, 2006. "Dynamic Mixed Duopoly: A Model Motivated by Linux vs. Windows," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(7), pages 1072-1084, July.
    3. Brian S. Butler, 2001. "Membership Size, Communication Activity, and Sustainability: A Resource-Based Model of Online Social Structures," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 346-362, December.
    4. Bliss, Christopher & Nalebuff, Barry, 1984. "Dragon-slaying and ballroom dancing: The private supply of a public good," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 1-12, November.
    5. Moulin Herve & Shenker Scott, 1994. "Average Cost Pricing versus Serial Cost Sharing: An Axiomatic Comparison," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 178-201, October.
    6. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Gastón Llanes, 2011. "Mixed Source," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(7), pages 1212-1230, July.
    2. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Feng Zhu, 2010. "Strategies to Fight Ad-Sponsored Rivals," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(9), pages 1484-1499, September.
    3. Chang, Yang-Ming & Walter, Jason, 2015. "Digital piracy: Price-quality competition between legal firms and P2P network hosts," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 22-32.
    4. Hanna Halaburda & Mikołaj Jan Piskorski & Pınar Yıldırım, 2018. "Competing by Restricting Choice: The Case of Matching Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(8), pages 3574-3594, August.
    5. Karl Taeuscher, 2019. "Uncertainty kills the long tail: demand concentration in peer-to-peer marketplaces," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 29(4), pages 649-660, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luigi Di Gaetano, 2015. "A Model of corporate donations to open source under hardware–software complementarity," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 24(1), pages 163-190.
    2. Ester Manna, 2017. "Customer‐oriented employees: Blessing or curse for firms?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 842-875, December.
    3. Lionel Richefort, 2018. "Warm-glow giving in networks with multiple public goods," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 47(4), pages 1211-1238, November.
    4. Wang, Chengsi & Zudenkova, Galina, 2016. "Non-monotonic group-size effect in repeated provision of public goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 116-128.
    5. Cobo-Reyes, Ramón & Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Levin, Dan, 2017. "The effect of production technology on trust and reciprocity in principal-agent relationships with team production," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 324-338.
    6. Campos-Mercade, Pol, 2021. "The volunteer’s dilemma explains the bystander effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 646-661.
    7. Kjell Arne Brekke & Karine Nyborg & Mari Rege, 2007. "The Fear of Exclusion: Individual Effort when Group Formation is Endogenous," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(3), pages 531-550, September.
    8. Madanmohan Ghosh & Carlo Perroni & John Whalley, 1999. "The Value of MFN Treatment to Developing Countries," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 9916, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    9. Debraj Ray & Jean-Marie Baland & Olivier Dagnelie, 2007. "Inequality and Inefficiency in Joint Projects," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 922-935, July.
    10. Parimal Kanti Bag & Santanu Roy, 2008. "Repeated Charitable Contributions under Incomplete Information," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 60-91, January.
    11. Brekke, Kjell Arne & Nyborg, Karine, 2008. "Attracting responsible employees: Green production as labor market screening," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 509-526, December.
    12. Bergstrom, Ted & Garratt, Rodney & Leo, Greg, 2019. "Let me, or let George? Motives of competing altruists," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 269-283.
    13. Charles D. Kolstad, 2014. "International Environmental Agreements among Heterogeneous Countries with Social Preferences," NBER Working Papers 20204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Yan Chen & F. Maxwell Harper & Joseph Konstan & Sherry Xin Li, 2010. "Social Comparisons and Contributions to Online Communities: A Field Experiment on MovieLens," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1358-1398, September.
    15. Gans, Joshua S. & Landry, Peter, 2022. "I’m not sure what to think about them: Confronting naive present bias in a dynamic threshold public goods game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 195-204.
    16. Roi Zultan & Eva-Maria Steiger, 2011. "See No Evil: Information Chains and Reciprocity in Teams," Working Papers 1108, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    17. Liu, Taoxiong & Zhou, Bihua, 2011. "Commitment and optimal incentive," MPRA Paper 35550, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Dec 2011.
    18. Christiane Clemens & Thomas Riechmann, 2006. "Evolutionary Dynamics in Public Good Games," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 28(4), pages 399-420, November.
    19. Xiaoquan (Michael) Zhang & Feng Zhu, 2011. "Group Size and Incentives to Contribute: A Natural Experiment at Chinese Wikipedia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1601-1615, June.
    20. Murnighan, J. Keith & Wang, Long, 2016. "The social world as an experimental game," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 80-94.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:19:y:2010:i:2:p:333-373. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/journals/JEMS/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.