Piracy Loss Statistics Flawed

[GhostShip]

Nothing new in this but always good to point it out

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061003/185626.shtml#comments

The various industry associations like the BSA, RIAA and MPAA really enjoy publishing bogus stats about piracy as if they're factual, but that's their job as industry associations/lobbying groups. What's worse is when those bogus numbers are cited as being factual by the press. Last week, we noted that a think tank, backed by the MPAA, had put out a fairly ridiculous report on how piracy was actually "costing" the industry much more due to the "ripple effect" throughout the economy. Specifically, the report claimed that the cost was $20.5 billion -- much higher than any previous study.

Earlier this week, Tim Lee ripped apart the study, explaining how the think tank seemed to get the basic math wrong in explaining the impact.

The above article examines the aspect of repeating flawed statistics as fact and is based off of this rebuttal article to the MPAA sponsored think tank stats.

http://www.techliberation.com/archives/040774.php


I think its clear to most folks that the MPAA and RIAA have a history of releasing false piracy figures to gain more media coverage, as one reporter was noted as saying when he found out the figures where fabricated, "i will never trust their figures again", I of course never trusted them to begin with, if you have to invent things to make your case you have lost the argument.

 

[Neutron]

They are either liars publishing fake stats, or they simply think that 1 downloaded album is 1 lost sale, without taking into account that the user wouldn't buy the album if they couldn't download it. I think the first one.

[KM]

well they are the same people behind mxlie last i checked... so i doubt they accidentally get every single "fact" wrong

[SamSeeSam]

I think that these figures are actually good for the general public. The more high their figures get ,the moire stupid they look, the more people become aware of the scammers that they are paying. And I don't see much chances of the figures coming down either. Which I guess is good in the long term.

Cheers

[Neutron]

Who cares about how they whine about the money they lose anyway. All I've ever seen them do is disrupting p2p, suing normal people for file sharing, and after all taking money from others hard work. If they want to cry over it as well, then sure let them. But I know that they don't lose anywhere nearly as much as they claim. They don't lose anything at all because most of those who download a song would never buy it if they had to. Same thing goes for movies.