Millions of people illegally download television programs and movies and other types of digital assets annually.

While companies decry the loss of potential business, new research by Antino Kim, assistant professor of operations and decision technologies, found that a moderate level of piracy can have a positive impact on the bottom line for both the manufacturer and the retailer — and not at the expense of consumers.

Kim’s paper with two co-authors, “The ‘Invisible Hand’ of Piracy: An Economic Analysis of the Information-Goods Supply Chain,” appears in the December 2018 edition of MIS Quarterly.

“When information goods are sold to consumers via a retailer, in certain situations, a moderate level of piracy seems to have a surprisingly positive impact on the profits of the manufacturer and the retailer while, at the same time, enhancing consumer welfare,” Kim and his co-authors wrote. “Such a win-win-win situation is not only good for the supply chain but is also beneficial for the overall economy.”

While not condoning piracy, Kim and his colleagues were surprised to find that it can actually reduce, or completely eliminate at times, the adverse effect of double marginalization, an economic concept where both manufacturers and retailers in the same supply chain add to the price of a product, passing these markups along to consumers.

The response to a Jan. 28 news release about Kim’s research was considerable. He began his day with compliments from his Kelley students, who told him that he made the front page of Reddit and that his paper had become a trending topic.

He later was interviewed by the BBC World Service, Vice News’ Motherboard site, BYU Radio and Australia’s biggest news site, news.com.au.

Futurity, a site devoted to university research supported by the Association of American Universities, published an article, “A little digital piracy boosts the bottom line.”

Coverage also included numerous tech news sites around the world, including those based in the United Kingdom, China, France, Finland, India, Brazil and Argentina.

“Our results do not imply that the legal channel should, all of a sudden, start actively encouraging piracy,” Kim said. “The implication is simply that, situated in a real-world context, our manufacturer and retailer should recognize that a certain level of piracy or its threat might actually be beneficial and should, therefore, exercise some moderation in their anti-piracy efforts.”