Last week, Minister of the European Parliament, Julia Reda, unearthed a well-hidden 2014 study financed by the European Commission entitled Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU [juliareda.eu] [warning: PDF] that studied the effects of copyright enfrinement on sales. The study cost 360,000 EUR to carry out and though it was ready in 2015 it was only made public last week when Reda was able to get ahold of a copy.
The study’s conclusion was that with the exception of recently released blockbusters, there is no evidence to support the idea that online copyright infringement displaces sales. This conclusion is consistent with previous studies, and raises the following question: "Why did the Commission, after having spent a significant amount of money on it, choose not to publish this study for almost two years?"