Competition over piratable goods

The effects of (private, small-scale) copying on the pricing behavior of producers of information goods are studied within a unified model of vertical differentiation. Although information goods are assumed to be perfectly horizon tally differentiated, demands are interdependent because the copying technology exhibits increasing returns to scale. We characterize the symmetric Nash equilibria of the pricing game played by n producers of information goods. We show thereby how the producers' attitudes towards piracy are interdependent and evolve with the relative attractiveness of copies.