Paper ID

2586

Paper Type

short

Description

Combatting piracy is one of the central topics in 21st century amid the development of new information technologies that facilitate easy sharing of digital content. In this study, we examine whether decreasing anonymity on online forums through linking users’ online account with their real-world identity affects piracy. We leverage a natural experiment in China – the implementation of real-name identification policy in 2017-06-01, and make use of a dataset containing more than 1.9 million posts from three major online forums in China. We found that decreasing anonymity only reduces piracy within a very short time window, and it increases piracy in the long run.

Share

COinS
 

The Impact of Anonymity on Piracy – Evidence from China

Combatting piracy is one of the central topics in 21st century amid the development of new information technologies that facilitate easy sharing of digital content. In this study, we examine whether decreasing anonymity on online forums through linking users’ online account with their real-world identity affects piracy. We leverage a natural experiment in China – the implementation of real-name identification policy in 2017-06-01, and make use of a dataset containing more than 1.9 million posts from three major online forums in China. We found that decreasing anonymity only reduces piracy within a very short time window, and it increases piracy in the long run.