This paper studies the impact of software piracy in a two-sidedmarket setting. Software platforms attract developers … higher with more software protection but the impact on user prices is ambiguous. A conflict between platforms and software … developers over software protection may arise: whereas one side benefits from better protection, the other party loses out. Under …

This paper studies pricing strategies for a commercial software provider who faces competition from both a free …-of-charge open-source software substitute and illegal copies of its own product. When network externalities are present, the … commercial software provider may choose to set a price sufficiently low such that a critical mass of users is not attainable for …

strategy of a seller of proprietary software (such as Microsoft Office) is impacted by product piracy and the presence of Open … Source Software alternatives (such as Open Office). Our results, based on an analytical model, show that the losses incurred … externalities. Therefore, for products characterized by high network externalities (such as software), it is crucial for sellers to …

The open-source software operating system Linux is a free-of-charge substitute to proprietary systems like Microsoft … Windows. By using a cross-country data set, this paper finds evidence that increased piracy of proprietary software has a … Linux operating system on their desktop computers. Thus, in the absence of software piracy, Linux would be a more widely …