As we often point out here the so called "piracy studies" put forward by the media Cartels are often economical with the truth, imagine our suprise that the MPAA agree :shock:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080122/ap_en_ot/college_students_downloading_1;_ylt=Ao2lKk724.nwSGIwMIpD8rIE1vAIHollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong.
In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus.
But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.
The MPAA says that's still significant, and justifies a major effort by colleges and universities to crack down on illegal file-sharing. But Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, says it doesn't account for the fact that more than 80 percent of college students live off campus and aren't necessarily using college networks. He says 3 percent is a more reasonable estimate for the percentage of revenue that might be at stake on campus networks.
Terry Hartle, vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents higher education in Washington, said the mistakes showed the entertainment industry has unfairly targeted college campuses.
Students have always been an easy target to demonise and are in most part a large disorganised group of young people often ignorant of their rights, so whilst we must in this case thank the MPAA in for once being honest, how has this helped the students villified and browbeaten by US lawmakers who relied on these flawed studies to enact knee jerk legislation ?
