“The Effects of Internet Book Piracy: The Case of Comics”, Tatsuo Tanaka2019-08-08 (, )⁠:

In this study, the effects of internet book piracy in the case of the Japanese comic book market were examined using direct measurement of product level piracy ratio and a massive deletion project as a natural experiment.

Total effect of the piracy is negative to the legitimate sales, but panel regression and difference-in-difference analysis consistently indicated that the effect of piracy is heterogeneous: piracy decreased the legitimate sales of ongoing comics, whereas increased the legitimate sales of completed comics. The latter result is interpreted as follows: piracy reminds consumers of past comics and stimulates sales in that market.

[Keywords: copyright, comic, piracy, Internet, DID, manga]