The Effect of Film Sharing on P2P Networks on Box Office Sales

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Effect of Film Sharing on P2P Networks on Box Office Sales The effect of film sharing on P2P networks on box office sales Kęstutis Černiauskas Faculty of Computing Blekinge Institute of Technology SE-371 79 Karlskrona Sweden i This thesis is submitted to the Faculty of Computing at Blekinge Institute of Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Informatics (120 credits). Contact Information: Author(s): Kęstutis Černiauskas E-mail: [email protected] University advisor: Sara Eriksén Department Faculty of Computing Internet : www.bth.se Blekinge Institute of Technology Phone : +46 455 38 50 00 SE-371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden Fax : +46 455 38 50 57 ii ABSTRACT Context. Online piracy is widespread, controversial and poorly understood social phenomena that affects content creators, owners, and consumers. Online piracy, born from recent, rapid ITC changes, raises legal, ethical, and business challenges. Content owners, authors and content consumers should benefit from better understanding of online piracy. Improved, better adapted to marketplace and ITC changes content distribution models should benefit content owners and audiences. Objectives. Investigate online piracy effect on pirated product sales. Improve understanding of online piracy behaviors and process scale. Methods. This observational study investigated movie-sharing effect on U.S. box office. Movie sharing was observed over BitTorrent network, the most popular peer-to-peer file-sharing network. Relationship between piracy and sales was analyzed using linear regression model. Results. File sharing was found to have a slightly positive correlation with U.S. box office sales during first few weeks after film release, and no effect afterwards. Most of newly released movies are shared over BitTorrent network. File sharing is a global, massive phenomenon. Conclusions. I conclude that online movie file sharing has no negative correlation on U.S. box office. Slightly positive movie sharing correlation to box office sales could have occurred because sharing rather informs, than substitutes cinema going. Keywords: online piracy, P2P network, BitTorrent, file sharing, movie industry, box office 3 CONTENTS Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Contents ........................................................................................................................................................ 4 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 6 2. Related Work ........................................................................................................................................ 8 2.1. What is piracy? ............................................................................................................................. 8 2.2. Piracy impact ................................................................................................................................ 8 2.3. Piracy culture ................................................................................................................................ 9 2.4. Methods of piracy research ......................................................................................................... 10 2.5. Data sources ................................................................................................................................ 11 2.6. BitTorrent investigation methods ................................................................................................ 12 3. Method ............................................................................................................................................... 14 3.1. BitTorrent system ........................................................................................................................ 14 3.2. Data structures ............................................................................................................................ 15 3.2.1. BitTorrent file metadata .......................................................................................................... 15 3.2.2. Torrent data reported by torrent indexers ................................................................................ 15 3.2.3. BitTorrent data reported by tracker server .............................................................................. 15 3.2.4. Film sales data ......................................................................................................................... 15 3.2.5. Torrent indexers ...................................................................................................................... 16 3.2.6. Trackers ................................................................................................................................... 16 3.3. Data processing ........................................................................................................................... 17 3.3.1. Torrents ................................................................................................................................... 17 3.3.2. Data transformations ............................................................................................................... 18 3.3.3. Tracker-reported data cleaning, correction and removal ........................................................ 19 3.3.4. Sales and torrent usage data alignment ................................................................................... 20 3.4. Analysis....................................................................................................................................... 21 4. Results ................................................................................................................................................. 22 4.1. Descriptive statistics ................................................................................................................... 22 4.2. Representative individual movie statistics .................................................................................. 25 4.3. Models......................................................................................................................................... 27 4.3.1. Weekly models ........................................................................................................................ 28 4.3.2. Monthly models ...................................................................................................................... 30 4 4.3.3. Daily models ........................................................................................................................... 32 5. Analysis and Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 35 5.1. Variables and causality ............................................................................................................... 35 5.2. Context ........................................................................................................................................ 36 5.3. Data quality ................................................................................................................................. 37 5.4. Usefulness ................................................................................................................................... 37 5.4.1. For studies ............................................................................................................................... 37 5.4.2. For industry ............................................................................................................................. 39 5.5. Limitations .................................................................................................................................. 40 6. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 42 7. Future work ......................................................................................................................................... 44 8. References .......................................................................................................................................... 45 5 1. INTRODUCTION Online piracy is unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material online. It is a widespread, controversial and poorly understood social phenomena affecting content authors, owners and consumers. Online piracy affects spread to many areas of interest, such as legal, moral, behavioral, economic and behavioral. Content owners are concerned of how they are affected by online piracy, because freely distributed digital products might cannibalize sales of legal products. Owners could try to limit potentially disruptive piracy impact, and modify existing business practices to adapt to challenges. Online piracy provide consumers with opportunities to obtain digital products free, bypassing authorized content distributor’s channels. Some consumers might forego a purchase of product, what would result in lost sales. Others could still purchase products. This is a study of digital movie piracy over Internet. Study investigates movie files sharing on P2P networks correlation to U.S. box office sales. There is a gap of understanding
Recommended publications
  • Testimony of Authors Guild President Scott Turow Before the Senate
    My name is Scott Turow. I’m the president of the Authors Guild, the largest society of published authors in the U.S., representing more than 8,500 book authors and freelance writers. Our members represent the broad sweep of American authorship, including literary and genre fiction, nonfiction, trade, academic, and children’s book authors, textbook authors, freelance journalists and poets.1 Guild members have won countless honors and all major literary awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature.2 The Authors Guild promotes the professional interests of authors: we’re advocates for effective copyright protection, fair contracts, and free expression. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be here this morning. I’d like especially to thank this committee for recognizing the severity of the problem we all face and getting the ball rolling with COICA in the fall, which recognized this central and unavoidable truth: any serious attempt to address online piracy must address the third-party enablers of infringement. Anything that doesn’t address those enablers is, frankly, a pretend solution to a real problem. Our Copyright Policy Inadvertently Encourages Investments in Technologies and Services That Promote Trafficking in Stolen Books, Music, and Movies After 300 years as one of history's greatest public policy successes, copyright is coming undone. As we meet here this morning, our well-intended policy toward copyright online is 1 The Guild had its beginnings as the Authors League of America, which was founded in 1912 by a group of book authors (including Theodore Roosevelt, who served as the League’s founding vice president), short story writers, freelance journalists and a smattering of dramatists.
    [Show full text]
  • IBM Cloud Unit 2016 IBM Cloud Unit Leadership Organization
    IBM Cloud Technical Academy IBM Cloud Unit 2016 IBM Cloud Unit Leadership Organization SVP IBM Cloud Robert LeBlanc GM Cloud Platform GM Cloud GM Cloud Managed GM Cloud GM Cloud Object Integration Services Video Storage Offering Bill Karpovich Mike Valente Braxton Jarratt Line Execs Line Execs Marie Wieck John Morris GM Strategy, GM Client Technical VP Development VP Service Delivery Business Dev Engagement Don Rippert Steve Robinson Harish Grama Janice Fischer J. Comfort (GM & CTO) J. Considine (Innovation Lab) Function Function Leadership Leadership VP Marketing GM WW Sales & VP Finance VP Human Quincy Allen Channels Resources Steve Cowley Steve Lasher Sam Ladah S. Carter (GM EcoD) GM Design VP Enterprise Mobile GM Digital Phil Gilbert Phil Buckellew Kevin Eagan Missions Missions Enterprise IBM Confidential IBM Hybrid Cloud Guiding Principles Choice with! Hybrid ! DevOps! Cognitive Powerful, Consistency! Integration! Productivity! Solutions! Accessible Data and Analytics! The right Unlock existing Automation, tooling Applications and Connect and extract workload in the IT investments and composable systems that insight from all types right place and Intellectual services to increase have the ability to of data Property speed learn Three entry points 1. Create! 2. Connect! 3. Optimize! new cloud apps! existing apps and data! any app! 2016 IBM Cloud Offerings aligned to the Enterprise’s hybrid cloud needs IBM Cloud Platform IBM Cloud Integration IBM Cloud Managed Offerings Offerings Services Offerings Mission: Build true cloud platform
    [Show full text]
  • Securebox Azure
    General Electronics E-Commerce General Web General General General Electronics General Location Electronics E-Commerce Electronics Electronics Arrows General Web Electronics E-Commerce E-Commerce E-Commerce Web Location GeneraE-Col mmerce Weather Web Arrows WeWeb b Electronics Location Weather Miscellaneous Location Arrows Location Location Arrows Arrows Miscellaneous Electronics E-Commerce Arrows Weather Weather Weather Miscellaneous Web 28/03/2019 Weather SecureBox Azure penta.ch General Miscellaneous Access, backup, sync and share your data on Microsoft Azure SecureBox is a secure corporate cloud file sharing platform. Access your data anywhere and backup, view, sync and share – all under your control. Miscellaneous E-Commerce Browser & apps General SecureBox Devices Files Tablet Email Mobile Calendar PC Word processing Mac Spreadsheets Miscellaneous Photos Private cloud Bank-level security Local sync Backups & disaster recovery File sharing Independent auditing Password protection Editing permissions Link expiry dates Internal users External users SecureLo filecati sharingon and backup Long-term backups and data recovery The secure alternative to public cloud Instantly meet data protection and backup file sharing and backup with bank-level legal requirements with up to five-year data authentication. In multiple languages. backup and recovery options. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Arabic Web Control your data Versioning SecureBox data is stored and encrypted in Previous version of modified files are Microsft Azure data center. Manage groups automatically retained and can be restored, and security policies, backed by audit logs. while automatically managing storage space. Share files Regulatory compliance Send Arrolinks to wspeople inside or outside your Auditor-ready compliance reports included. company. Set unique passwords, expiry IndependentElec ISAEtr onic3402 auditss for regulatory dates, edit and download permissions.
    [Show full text]
  • Mimioclassroom User Guide for Windows
    MimioClassroom User Guide For Windows mimio.com © 2012 Sanford, L.P. All rights reserved. Revised 12/4/2012. No part of this document or the software may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means or translated into another language without the prior written consent of Sanford, L.P. Mimio, MimioClassroom, MimioTeach, MimioCapture, MimioVote, MimioView, MimioHub, MimioPad, and MimioStudio are registered marks in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders. Contents About MimioClassroom 1 MimioStudio 1 MimioTeach 1 Mimio Interactive 1 MimioCapture 2 Mimio Capture Kit 2 MimioVote 2 MimioView 2 MimioPad 2 Minimum System Requirements 2 Using this Guide 3 MimioStudio 7 About MimioStudio 7 About MimioStudio Notebook 7 About MimioStudio Tools 7 About MimioStudio Gallery 9 Getting Started with MimioStudio 9 Accessing MimioStudio Notebook 9 Accessing MimioStudio Tools 10 Accessing MimioStudio Gallery 10 Using MimioStudio Notebook 10 Working with Pages 11 Creating an Activity 14 Creating an Activity - Step 1: Define 14 Creating an Activity - Step 2: Select 14 Creating an Activity - Step 3: Refine 15 Creating an Activity - Step 4: Review 16 Working with an Activity 17 Writing an Objective 17 Attaching Files 18 Using MimioStudio Tools 18 Creating Objects 18 Manipulating Objects 21 Adding Actions to Objects 25 Using MimioStudio Gallery 26 iii Importing Gallery Items into a Notebook 27 Customizing the Content of the Gallery 27 Exporting a Gallery Folder to a Gallery File 29 Working
    [Show full text]
  • Wandisco Fusion® Microsoft Azure Data Box
    WANDISCO FUSION® MICROSOFT AZURE DATA BOX Use WANdisco Fusion with Data Box for bulk transfer of changing data WANdisco Fusion is the only solution that enables Microsoft customers to use the bulk transfer capabilities of the Azure Data Box to transfer static and changing Guaranteed data consistency information from Big Data applications to Azure Cloud with guaranteed data consistency. Users can continue to Take advantage of the storage on Azure Data Box for write to their local cluster while the Azure Data Box is in bulk data transfer while continuing to write to a local transit so when the Azure Data Box is subsequently being cluster and replicate those changes while the Azure uploaded, any changes are replicated to the Azure Cloud Data Box is uploaded to the Azure Cloud. with guaranteed consistency. Easy and intuitive step-by-step operation • Applications write to Azure Data Box using the same API that they use to interact with the Azure Cloud. No downtime and • WANdisco Fusion for Azure Data Box requires no change to applications which can continue to use the no business disruption API as they would normally. Write data to a local HDFS-compatible endpoint • Replication is continuous and recovers from on-premises and replicate to a storage location in intermittent network or system failures automatically. Microsoft Azure with no modification or disruption to applications on-premises. AZURE 2 STORAGE Cost saving MICROSOFT 1 3 AZURE DATA BOX Avoid the high network costs common to large scale data transfers and benefit from a range of FUSION applications available in Azure Cloud.
    [Show full text]
  • Causes, Effects and Solutions of Piracy in the Computer Software Market
    Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues, 2006, vol. 4(1), pp. 63-86 CAUSES,EFFECTSANDSOLUTIONSOFPIRACYINTHE COMPUTER SOFTWARE MARKET AMY MARSHALL Abstract. Much literature has been devoted to exploring the protection of computer programs. The decreasing effectiveness of copyright and patents has been extensively examined and alternative forms of protection, both phys- ical and market-based, have been laid out. A large proportion of writings is dedicated to describing the significant network externalities that exist in thesoftwaremarket,andtheeffect that these have on the optimal level of protection. A large number of surveys have been undertaken to analyse the characteristics of software pirates and their incentives to pirate. This paper attempts to provide an overview of this literature. 1. Introduction The widespread incidence of unauthorised use and copying of computer software has had a devastating impact on the software industry in recent years. Significantly costly time and effort is invested by software programmers in developing a program and with software piracy preventing these developers from recouping remuneration from users, the incentives existing to produce new software may not be sufficient enough for any further development, causing the industry to stagnate. This would be costly to not only computer programmers but also to the government who would miss out on a significant amount of taxation revenue and society as a whole, whose software choices would be diminished. The traditional protector of intellectual property is copyright, defining the rights of ownership of creators and allowing for the enforcement of these rights. The basis behind copyright law is to provide the means for a creator to receive sufficient remuneration for development to occur.
    [Show full text]
  • Lock-Free Collaboration Support for Cloud Storage Services With
    Lock-Free Collaboration Support for Cloud Storage Services with Operation Inference and Transformation Jian Chen, Minghao Zhao, and Zhenhua Li, Tsinghua University; Ennan Zhai, Alibaba Group Inc.; Feng Qian, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Hongyi Chen, Tsinghua University; Yunhao Liu, Michigan State University & Tsinghua University; Tianyin Xu, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast20/presentation/chen This paper is included in the Proceedings of the 18th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST ’20) February 25–27, 2020 • Santa Clara, CA, USA 978-1-939133-12-0 Open access to the Proceedings of the 18th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST ’20) is sponsored by Lock-Free Collaboration Support for Cloud Storage Services with Operation Inference and Transformation ⇤ 1 1 1 2 Jian Chen ⇤, Minghao Zhao ⇤, Zhenhua Li , Ennan Zhai Feng Qian3, Hongyi Chen1, Yunhao Liu1,4, Tianyin Xu5 1Tsinghua University, 2Alibaba Group, 3University of Minnesota, 4Michigan State University, 5UIUC Abstract Pattern 1: Losing updates Alice is editing a file. Suddenly, her file is overwritten All studied This paper studies how today’s cloud storage services support by a new version from her collaborator, Bob. Sometimes, cloud storage collaborative file editing. As a tradeoff for transparency/user- Alice can even lose her edits on the older version. services friendliness, they do not ask collaborators to use version con- Pattern 2: Conflicts despite coordination trol systems but instead implement their own heuristics for Alice coordinates her edits with Bob through emails to All studied handling conflicts, which however often lead to unexpected avoid conflicts by enforcing a sequential order.
    [Show full text]
  • Wandisco Fusion® Microsoft Azure Data Box®
    FUSION WANDISCO FUSION® MICROSOFT AZURE DATA BOX® Use WANdisco Fusion with Data Box for bulk transfer of changing data WANdisco Fusion is the only solution that enables Microsoft customers to use the bulk transfer capabilities of the Azure Data Box to transfer static and changing Always accurate information from Big Data applications to Azure Cloud with guaranteed data consistency. Users can continue to Take advantage of the storage on Azure Data Box for write to their local cluster while the Azure Data Box is in bulk data transfer while continuing to write to a local transit so when the Azure Data Box is subsequently being cluster and replicate those changes while the Azure uploaded, any changes are replicated to the Azure Cloud Data Box is uploaded to the Azure Cloud. with guaranteed consistency. Easy and intuitive step-by-step operation • Applications write to Azure Data Box using the same API that they use to interact with the Azure Cloud. Always available • WANdisco Fusion for Azure Data Box requires no change to applications which can continue to use the Write data to a local HDFS-compatible endpoint API as they would normally. on-premises and replicate to a storage location in • Replication is continuous and recovers from Microsoft Azure with no modification or disruption to intermittent network or system failures automatically. applications on-premises. AZURE 2 STORAGE Lower cost structure MICROSOFT 1 3 AZURE DATA BOX Avoid the high network costs common to large scale data transfers and benefit from a range of applications available in Azure Cloud. FUSION FUSION FUSION HADOOP ON-PREMISES Copyright © 2018 WANdisco, Inc.
    [Show full text]
  • Online Piracy and Consumer Affect to Pay Or Not to Pay
    Online Piracy and Consumer Affect To pay or not to pay Master Thesis Psychology: Consumer Behavior Matthias W. Kampmann Online Piracy and Consumer Affect 1 Running head: ONLINE PIRACY AND CONSUMER AFFECT Online Piracy and Consumer Affect: To pay or not to pay Matthias W. Kampmann University of Twente Master Thesis Psychology: Consumer Behavior Instructors: Dr. M. Galetzka & Dr. P.W. de Vries June 2010 Online Piracy and Consumer Affect 2 Abstract Online music piracy is a growing problem for the economy. Yet research on the underlying processes that govern online music piracy behavior is limited. This study addresses this shortcoming by combining insights from research on appraisal theory and consumer reactance into a conceptual framework. The results of an online survey study with N = 160 participants indicate that a price increase that leads to more profits for the music industry instead of more profits for young artists is seen as less fair and music files are perceived to have less value. Price affect could however not be confirmed as a significant predictor of consumer behavior. Ethical beliefs did not moderate the appraisal process but they have a strong negative influence on online piracy behavior. An adjusted model explains 35% of variance in the online piracy intention measure. Theoretical and managerial implications and possibilities for future research are discussed. Online Piracy and Consumer Affect 3 Online Piracy and Consumer Affect: To pay or not to pay Digital piracy has been a byproduct of the digitalized world since the early days of personal computers (Gopal, Sanders, Bhattacharjee, Agrawal, & Wagner, 2004). With the rise of the internet digital piracy has shifted from illegal copies of physical goods like floppy disks, CDs or DVDs towards the theft of intangible goods like music files, video files and computer software (Wall, 2005).
    [Show full text]
  • A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The
    A Framework for Application Specific Knowledge Engines Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Lai, Guanpi Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 25/09/2021 03:58:57 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/204290 A FRAMEWORK FOR APPLICATION SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE ENGINES by Guanpi Lai _____________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF SYSTEMS AND INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2010 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Guanpi Lai entitled A Framework for Application Specific Knowledge Engines and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 4/28/2010 Fei-Yue Wang _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 4/28/2010 Ferenc Szidarovszky _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 4/28/2010 Jian Liu Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent
    [Show full text]
  • Piracy Landscape Study
    Piracy Landscape Study: Analysis of Existing and Emerging Research Relevant to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Enforcement of Commercial-Scale Piracy Prepared for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Solicitation Number: 1333BJ19Q00142004 Brett Danaher Michael D. Smith Rahul Telang Chapman University Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University This Version: March 20, 2020 Table of Contents Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... 3 1. The Piracy Ecosystem........................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Piracy of Physical Goods................................................................................................ 6 1.1.1 Manufacturing......................................................................................................... 7 1.1.2 Discovery ................................................................................................................ 7 1.1.3 Distribution ............................................................................................................. 8 1.1.4 Communication, Payment Processing and Fulfillment ......................................... 11 1.2 Piracy of Digital Goods ................................................................................................ 11 1.2.1 Sources.................................................................................................................. 12 1.2.2
    [Show full text]
  • How to Download Torrent Anonymously How to Download Torrent Anonymously
    how to download torrent anonymously How to download torrent anonymously. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Cloudflare Ray ID: 66b6c3aaaba884c8 • Your IP : 188.246.226.140 • Performance & security by Cloudflare. Download Torrents Anonymously: 6 Safe And Easy Ways. Who doesn’t want to know how to download torrents anonymously? The thing is, in order to download torrents anonymously you don’t need to have a lot of technical know-how. All you need to download torrents anonymously is some grit and a computer with an internet connection. The technology world never remains the same. In fact, new development and discoveries come to the surface of this industry every day. They also come into the attention of online users every year. Moreover, this allows us to do much more than we could do in the past, in faster and easier ways. A highly relevant aspect to mention at this stage is that: Now we can also download torrents anonymously from best torrent sites.
    [Show full text]