MIT Sloan Management Review Article on 'Just Enough' Piracy Can Be a Good Thing

It’s become costlier for retailers and manufacturers to combat piracy in the digital age. But in moderation, it’s not all bad.

This spring, HBO’s television series Game of Thrones concluded after eight seasons. Throughout its tenure, the show was incredibly popular while also earning the dubious distinction of the most pirated television program. The severity of piracy is duly illustrated by the show’s season four finale, which, within 12 hours of its original broadcast in June 2014, was illegally downloaded 1.5 million times, amounting to 2 petabytes transferred in just half a day. While an upsurge in piracy around the time of the original broadcast may be natural, a steady level of interest for pirated copies of older episodes has continued unabated, well after the episodes became available at retailers online. Despite ongoing issues with illegal downloads — there were 1 billion of the show’s seventh season — HBO seems to have no real plans to counter the illegal streaming services and lets off perpetrators with only a slap on the wrist.

About the Author

Antino Kim is an assistant professor of information systems at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Atanu Lahiri is an associate professor of information systems at the Naveen Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas. Debabrata Dey is the Marion B. Ingersoll Professor of Information Systems at the Foster School of Business, University of Washington, in Seattle. Gerald C. Kane (@profkane) is a professor of information systems at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.

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