Piracy Boosts Anime Sales, Says Japanese Government Study 199
An anonymous reader writes "A new study seems to confirm what a lot of the Slashdot crowd thinks, and the opposite of what the **AAs say: 'A prestigious economics think-tank of the Japanese government has published a study which concludes that online piracy of anime shows actually increases sales of DVDs. The conclusion stands in sharp contrast with the entertainment industry's claims that "illicit" downloading is leading to billions of dollars in losses worldwide. It also puts the increased anti-piracy efforts of the anime industry in doubt.' More specifically, '(1) YouTube viewing does not negatively affect DVD rentals, and it appears to help raise DVD sales; and (2) although Winny [a popular P2P program in Japan] file sharing negatively affects DVD rentals, it does not affect DVD sales.'"
Re:Remember (Score:2, Informative)
What a lie (Score:1, Informative)
Piracy doesn't boost anything. It takes away jobs from well deserving people. I know because the RIAA told me so.
The price of tea in China (Score:5, Informative)
The article specifically mentions Japanese releases and sales within Japan. I don't think fansubbing has any relevance in this specific case.
Re:Remember (Score:4, Informative)
Disclaimer: I am not very well versed in statistics and have only just read the Wikipedia article on Instrumental variables.
On page 14, the report discusses the model they use, which is a linear system of the log of the four variables they're trying to find relationships between. They then discuss 4 instrumental variables as well as two dozen or so dummy variables that describe aspects of the actual show, like when it is aired on TV, whether they have related drama CDs, net broadcasts, whether the anime was an original work or based on manga, novels, games, etc., who the target audience was and how many regions the show have been broadcast in. Table 3 has the full list, and also includes what I assume to be slopes in log-log space from their analysis as well as a "t" factor for which I'm not sure about. The four main instrumental (non-dummy) variables are: DVD price (number of thousands of yen per episode, how long a video on YouTube persists ... while the series is airing, within 1 month of that particular episode airing, and after the series is finished airing).
Table 4 is a chart highlighting that there is a negative correlation with DVD price and DVD sales, but a positive correlation of DVD price and YouTube views. There were also positive correlations between how long a video managed to stay on YouTube after airing of the TV show has been completed and DVD sales, rentals and YouTube views, but a negative correlation with Winny downloads.
According to Wikipedia, use of instrumental variables is one way to see if there is actual causation between two variables. However, I'll leave it to someone more well-versed in the subject to see if the report is accurate or not.