Does Digital Piracy Really Hurt Movies?

The article looks at research by economists Brett Danaher and Joel Waldfogel exploring the impact of illegal digital piracy of movies on the box-office profits of various films. An analysis of box-office receipts of films released before and after the invention of the file-sharing website BitTorrent found that movies introduced after BitTorrent made less money, particularly those in the genres of science fiction and action, indicating a negative consequence of online piracy.