Piracy and Outlaw Community Innovations

User innovation is a commonly observed phenomenon in various industries where users modify or improve products that they use (von Hippel 1988, 2005). Communities of user innovators – inno-vation communities – provide platforms for users to openly and voluntarily communicate with each other regarding innovations they are working on either collectively or independently (Franke & Shah 2003, Hienerth 2006, von Hippel 2005). Recent studies that have examined the relationship between innovation communities and firms have found that there is often a symbiotic relationship from whic