مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد بازار دو طرفه سرقت ادبی نرم افزار

Many software products are centered around platforms. Examples for these industries include game consoles, e-book readers, and applications for smartphones. In particular, applications for smartphones or tablet PCs have gained much importance in recent years. Common to all these examples is that the platform has to attract two sides. Consider the examples of game consoles. There, a platform (i.e., the game console such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii, or Sony’s PlayStation) has to attract gamers (users who buy the game console) and game developers. Users only find the game console attractive if many games are available; at the same time, game developers only find the platform attractive if they can reach many gamers. In this aspect, these markets are characterized by two-sided network externalities (see, e.g., Armstrong, 2006; Caillaud & Jullien, 2003; Hagiu, 2006, 2009; Rochet & Tirole, 2003, 2006).

Piracy of software seems to be a growing concern in these markets, potentially leading to losses for both developers and platforms.1 Our study is in particular motivated by the steadily growing market for software applications (so-called apps) which are popular among users of Internet-compatible digital devices such as smartphones or tablets. In this market, operating systems (such as Android [Google], BlackBerry OS [BlackBerry], iOS [Apple], Windows Phone [Microsoft]) act as platforms and software developers provide applications which run on the operating systems. As a matter of fact, many sources point out that overall software piracy seems to be a major issue in this market with some apps and/or games having piracy rates of more than 90%.2 However, software developers seem to be affected differently by illegal downloads and software piracy. A recent study by the Yankee Group and Skyhook investigating the impact of app piracy on 75 Android developers revealed that 27% consider piracy a “huge problem” and another 26% consider it “somewhat of a problem”. ۳ This means that slightly less than half of the developers surveyed appear not very concerned by the existence of piracy. In a survey of UK videogame developers, the trade industry group TIGA found that only 10% of developers considered piracy a threat to their business survival but 90% viewed it a “constant or increasing problem”. However, 30% would not do business differently as a direct consequence from the existence of piracy (with 50% saying they were in favor of a change in business practices and 20% answering “don’t know”).۴ This raises the question why firms have such different views on piracy. In this article, we will provide a possible explanation, based on different prominence levels, why some software firms within an industry may favor piracy (or are affected to a lesser extent) whereas others may not.

We study the impact of piracy when software developers are differentiated according to prominence. Prominent and non-prominent software differs in two dimensions. Firstly, under a prominent piece of software we understand a piece of software that is known by users well in advance of adopting a platform and which is important for their adoption decision. Other pieces of software are less well known and do not play a role in a user’s adoption decision. Secondly, given that prominent software is better known, it is reasonable that prominent software is more likely to be purchased by a user than a non-prominent piece of software. We model this by assuming that users derive a higher utility from prominent software. The important assumption imposed in this model is that users are fully informed about the availability of prominent software before adopting a platform whereas users discover some other, non-prominent software only after they have adopted a software platform. Hence, at the adoption stage, only prominent software is considered which means that the availability of a prominent piece of software may have a large impact on market shares on the user side.5 However, whether a non-prominent piece of software is available or not does not influence users’ adoption decisions. Still, we think that this myopic user behavior is reasonable in many instances.