Law Commons^™

Copyright Enforcement In Content-Sharing Platforms, Kameshwari Shankar

Publications and Research

This paper analyzes the choice between quality improvements and copyright litigation by a proprietary seller who faces a competitive threat from a content-sharing platform. The platform operates like a “public good” with contributors who share content and free-riders who only consume content while adding to congestion on the platform. When the proprietor can identify contributors in the platform with sufficient accuracy, a litigation strategy that targets contributors exacerbates free-riding behavior in the sharing platform and drives down platform quality. In contrast, investing in quality improvements for the copyrighted good does not affect contribution decisions on the platform, leading to a …