Anecdotal evidence suggests that counterfeiting/piracy can help create online word-of-mouth (WOM) and through this boost demand but how powerful is such WOM? To answer this question, we conduct a descriptive study with some attempts to establish near causality. We estimate the impact of piracy on WOM and ultimately revenue by applying a panel data method to all movies widely released in the U.S. from 2015 to 2017.... Our findings suggest approaches to target scarce anti-piracy resources, such as focusing on tackling damaging pre-release piracy.