DiSCourse Seminar with Vaarun Vijairaghavan
6 February 2026, 12:00 (CET), hybrid
Digital Science Center, Innrain 15, 1st floor, Open Space Area or Big Blue Button
DiSCourse - The Digital Science Seminar Series on:
Fair Play for Fair Pay: Fighting Digital Piracy through Revenue Sharing
Policy-makers rely on the cooperation of network providers (NPs) to identify and penalize consumption of illegal content. However, due to enforcement costs and the fact that pirated content makes up a substantial proportion of their users' internet traffic, NPs have limited incentives to cooperate effectively. We propose a revenue sharing mechanism to address the NP's lack of incentive to combat digital piracy. The mechanism involves a voluntary arrangement wherein a content provider (CP) decides to share a proportion of its revenue with the NP. The NP then determines its enforcement, after observing which the CP sets the price of its content. Finally, users choose to purchase, pirate, or not use the content. We find that such revenue sharing can occur under specific market conditions including low data fees, low enforcement costs, and high quality of pirated content. The result is increased profits for both the CP and the NP. We characterize the entire parameter space and demarcate where the optimal revenue share does and does not eliminate piracy. Finally, our study is among the first to show that direct market-based anti-piracy interventions by the CP and NP can increase efficiency and under certain circumstances, increase social welfare compared to a regime where the CP and NP are vertically integrated.
Vaarun Vijairaghavan, University of Calgary
Vaarun Vijairaghavan is an Assistant Professor of Business Technology Management at the University of Calgary, with an additional role as a Visiting Scholar in Information Systems at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Technology Management with a minor in Accounting from the University of Calgary, an MBA from York University, and a Bachelor of Computer Engineering from the University of Pune. His research employs game theory, analytical modeling, and econometric approaches. His research involves platforms, regulation, productivity, and digital piracy, and he holds multiple Canadian federal grants to support his research.