Discovery, Cannibalization, or Both: How Digitization Affects Demand for Physical Copies

Abhishek Nagaraj & Imke Reimers, Digitization and the Demand for Physical Works: Evidence from the Google Books Project (2019), available at SSRN. Christopher J. Buccafusco From 2004 until 2009, the Google Books Project (GBP) digitized thousands of books from the collection of Harvard University’s library and made them available online. According to Google and proponents of the GBP, digitization would introduce readers to books that they otherwise couldn’t find or obtain, increasing access to and interest in the digitized works. But according to some authors and publishers, the creation of free digital copies would usurp the demand for print copies, undermining an important industry. This dispute was at the heart of a decade of litigation over GBP’s legality. After all of that, who was right? According to a recent empirical study by economists Abhishek Nagaraj and Imke Reimers, the answer is: both of them. The paper, Digitization and the Demand…

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