Slashdot Mirror
MPAA Piracy Survey - Junk Research
Cpt_Corelli writes "Alwayson network claims that a recent survey conducted by Online Testing Exchange (OTX) and distributed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is crap. The MPAA's summary of the survey claims, among other hard-to-believe assertions, that 'about one in four Internet users have downloaded a movie.' (It turns out this isn't true, but this is the factoid that was heard around the world the following week.) When did you stop trusting sponsored 'research'?"
Since when would we trust the MPAA anyways?
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
People wo think that statistics are the straight truth are idiots. This is just a further example of how one can easily manipulate numbers to prove a point. Simpel you take the number of downloaded movies, and divide by the number of people online, and you could create a stat that justifies this claim, or just look at subsection like china and be like everyone has pirated software on thier computer so therefore everyone must be pirating worldwide.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
You don't trust sponsored "research", period.
It's sad that it's come to this, but that's perfectly normal behavior for a [corporation|industry|politician] these days. And unfortunately, the above always seem to believe each other over the truth. After all... if someone spent all that money to have a report written about something, then it -must- be true.
Please shoot me.
Okay, seriously, for the slightly less-paranoid... It's always a good idea to find out, at the very least,
a.)Who payed for the research
b.)Who they work for/own stock in/represent/want you to vote for.
While most of the time, a research group is not going to make up numbers out of whole cloth, writing the questions in a way that could influence the result is bound to happen most of the time.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
If you're not going to trust 'sponsored' research, you've got no one to trust. All research is funded by someone, and that someone always has something to gain or lose (why else pay for it?). Who would pay for studies of internet movie downloading, aside from movie studios and internet corporations? What's important is to look at the studies from the opposing sides so that you can draw a line down the middle or test each against each other.
G
When did you stop trusting sponsored 'research'?"
About the time I understood what the term 'corporate interests' meant.
the scientific method does not apply to business ventures.
For the average person the time to download a movie in the US on our abysmal brodband lines you could probably make up the cost of the movie by just being at work.
Along with half movies, bogus titles, viruses, poor quality, people that let you download and kill it after a few minutes it's just not worth it.
Mp3's were popular to download even on dialup because it took minutes to download vs hours or even days to obtain a movie.
As SBC and Verizon deploy FTTH/P then you'll see the rehtoric cranked up as it would then take a 15Mbit line a few minutes to get a whole movie.
Even so, the MPAA needs to get a clue. I can count more than 20 movies this year I have gone to see that I considered afterwards good enough for video. With the exception of the Last Samurai, iRobot, and a few others I feel ripped off. They need to quit previewing all the good parts in the movies and begin to come up with quality work.
Perhaps they are referring to video files in general. I could believe the statistic in that case. Still misrepresentation though...
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Surveys can easily be skewed, you just have to know how to ask the questions. If I asked my mother if she has ever downloaded a movie off the internet, she would respond "Yes"... because she considers all those little movieclips, and streaming media to be "Movies". In that respect, it would be very easy to conceive that 1 in 4 people have downloaded a movie off the internet.
Sponsored research is not automatically bad.... there are a number of areas where interest is not widespread beyond the industry players in that industry, so they are the only ones who will foot the bill.
Plus, there can be biased research that is not funded by insiders.... that simply is not a way to distinguish the good from the bad.
What is really proper, is to demand that all surveys 1) release the entire raw data set, 2) release the entire question sample, and 3) all other information so it can be replicated and peer reviewed.
This is standard fare in other industries, and most legitimate survey takers already do it.
The better test to detect bogus research, is not to ask who paid for it, but to ask if they are complying with the above criteria.
I blame the media more than the education system. Yes, it would be nice if we could get people to get out of the school system with the ability to cut through rhetoric better than they do, but let's fully blame the media here. Just as on /. we have all come to realize how often studies are distorted by sponsorship money, journalists must know this too. They have been exposed to too many examples of this not to know to check for who sponsored the study, etc. So why don't the news articles point out the flaws in the studies? If they did that, people reading them would be fortified in their knowledge.
Of course, I can think of several reasons why journalists don't do this most of the time: Lack of time before deadline to do the research / laziness / the need to keep the sponsors of those studies happy so that they will cooperate with the journalists next time, and so on. Still, it is disheartening.
...when it was funded and published by a company it harms.
Of course, we'll later learn it was just to bolster a less obvious plan.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
And I'm fairly old; the behavior of the tobacco companies' pet scientists is what caused my skepticism.
A bank can post record profits, but fraud against that bank is still wrong.
Fraud against a bank involves an actual loss of money. Copyright infringement doesn't necessarily.
That's the most frustrating part. The entertainment IP cartels don't need to demonstrate damage, it's never been proven by disinterested third-party research, and it may well turn out to be a self-inflicted remedy, yet they'll stop at no restriction to rights and freedoms to control the 'product' they rightfully made artists sign away. Mine mine mine mine, they're like children with toys.
I really enjoyed the idea that the MPAA took this survey as 25% of all internet users download movies. As the article points out, it never dawned on them that you can LEGALLY download movies all over the place. Given, these are not your Hollywood blockbusters, but they are still movies that are being downloaded.
Instead what they like to do is include the stats for the amount of geeks downloading LOTR, then combine it with the box office busts like Catwoman and say "See! People aren't seeing movies because they can just download it." They conveniently forget the fact that watching your cat lick herself while taking a piss in the litter box is more entertaining than watching Catwoman. Hopefully someone in congress will wise up to the RIAA and MPAA games and give them a swift kick in the caboose.
But that is the ad's intent. The point is not about the truth of the research, it's about the presentation. What do "doctors" who smoke have to do with the best/healthiest/coolest brand of cigarettes? Nothing really, but the connection Winston was trying to make is so obvious I can't believe you missed it - if doctors smoke them, they must be the right brand to smoke.
Nothing is wrong with the statement in itself. The research may have been repeatable and the methodology may be sound. Hell, they may have surveyed every doctor on the planet! None of that matters, because the way the statistic is used is the problem. It is intentionally misleading to a casual reader in order to promote Winston's best interests.
The press and sponsored researchers have a symbiotic relationship. The press avoids printing the truth, because the truth is generally boring. That's why the press loves "studies" that tend to show something unbelievable, e.g., 1 in 4 internet users have downloaded a movie.
And it goes without saying that sponsored researchers exist solely to issue press releases.
As long as there is a press, there will be sponsored research, and vice versa.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
DAMN i wish i had a few hundred moderation points to vote 9/10'ths of the posts on this thread as redundant!
ok already! we know you never ever ever were gullible enough to believe sponsored research, and we know that you in fact have fallen for it many times without knowing or that you won't admit to.
post something original already!
49% of Americans, or 49% of American Internet users? It's a big, big difference ;)
Same kinda thing we're yelling at the MPAA/RIAA/whoever about.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
In-a-nutshell, the last 10-15 years has shown a trend in advertisers and corporate interests to be more and more bold about asserting hyperbole as fact.
This is most obvious when you watch tv commercials. Ten or more years ago, a "dramatization" would more accurately reflect reality: a cleaning solution or drug visually-demonstrated to eradicate dirt or infection would always leave a few traces behind in the animation. Now, every demonstration of every product shows 100% success. Just yesterday I saw a commercial during the Olympics showing an American pickup truck towing a tractor trailer loaded with a half-dozen vehicles. Completely ludicrous and impossible, but they get away with it with a fleeing "dramatization" tag, knowing full well most peoples' attention spans skip over the fine print. And speaking of fine print, they slap the tiniest disclaimers on advertisements for the shortest periods of time - virtually impossible to read. Who enforces this stuff and why aren't they doing their job?
Nobody seems to care so corporations become more and more cavalier and bold about misrepresenting reality and misleading the populace.
Advertising has always been the art of lying, but in this new dawn of consumerism, corporate interests have the mantra that they don't have to spew anything that's accurate, factual or close to reality if they have the power and resources to repeat their misleading message in perpetuity - that act in itself, according to them, affirms the integrity of their claims. See: GW Bush, MPAA, RIA, SCO, etc.
Now maybe at some point we'll reach critical mass with this BS, and the public will begin to trust nobody? Perhaps in another ten years substance and truth will be popular again? Who knows.
I suggest rather than spit into the wind of corporate america by trying to refute the never-ending stream of inaccurate propaganda, we jump on the bandwagon and hasten the eventual flashpoint of total media & corporate cynacism.
Everyone here should come up with at least one completely ridiculous "fact" or "figure" and do their best to propagate it. Maybe if enough of us pee into the already polluted river of corporate communication we can get the public to begin to seek more pure sources?
For example, I have written the Representative and Senators who represent me in Congress, advocating for a reform of intellectual property laws so that big companies like Disney can't steamroll anyone who attempts to impose a more rational system. But I also happen to live in California, where a huge slice of the population makes its living off of intellectual property in one way or another. The movie, music, and computer industries all depend on intellectual property for their survival.
The reaction from my representatives in Congress has been a fairly uniform, "We want to respond to new technologies in a way that allows for innovation but respects intellectual property laws." Basically they are concerned that if IP laws are messed with, the bread and butter for their constituents will vanish. It's about them wanting to stay in office, but it's also about them looking out for the economic interests of California.
You can say what you want about people wanting to make a quick buck, but as a small business owner I can categorically say that business is very difficult. It's never easy, and there is always someone ready to take over your market and eat your lunch if you're not careful. That's the nature of free enterprise. When you're in business, you seek every legal advantage you can get, because if you don't, you might not survive. Copyrights and patents do not "have the sole purpose of protecting the little guy from the big guy," or "the big guy from the little guy." They are intended to encourage innovation and spur the economy, while providing for long-term benefits to society.
It seems to me that the goal of all who would like to see the current imbalances in copyright and patent law redressed should be to show Congress and the people at large how current laws favor powerful, entrenched, and (this is vitally important) non-innovative players in the market. We need to show how if we do not change our IP laws, we will collectively be at an economic disadvantage because we have squelched innovation.
If you want to take on big, vested interests, you need to beat them at their own game. You need to show legislators and regular people (I get nervous any time anyone uses the term "The People" because it implies that in a country as large and diverse as the United States somehow there are only two camps - the forces of Evil, and The People) that it makes economic sense to reform intellectual property laws.
p.s. - "Back in the good 'ol days" (1920), the Prohibition Act came into being after more than 27 years of concerted grassroots political effort. Congress didn't just up and decide to enact Prohibition.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The remark about "trusting sponsored 'research'" misses the point. Real scientists use good methodology to help them keep their bias from influencing the outcome of research. The problem which often comes up in research that is funded to prove a point is that the methodology is bad, and anyone with a good science background should be pointing out that methodology is what matters.
Of course there is some chance that researchers who are out to prove a specific position might fabricate data, but I don't think this is the biggest part of the problem surrounding biased research.
Bias and reputation of the researchers and sponsors are grounds for suspicion; But, to really impeach a study, you must either demonstrate that the methodology is bad or that the data are fabricated. Science is not a popularity contest.
The article does talk about the problems with the methods used in the study, but the SlashDot quote referencing the article seems to be about the fact that the research is "sponsored" by a bad company. In science, it takes more than that to show a study to be unsound.
Adrian
I pay for my movies, my friends pay for their movies, we see dozens of them each year. We all have huge, non-copied, DVD and VHS collections, usually purchased first hand.
Yet, when I walk into the movie theater tonight(leaving in about 10min here), I will see, amonth the previews, a commercial asking me to stop movie piracy! I'm being told to stop stealing movies after I paid $9(plus a ~500% markup on the food) to see one!
That's just stupid and insulting. I don't pay to go get insulted... therefore it makes me just want to hop online and watch the movie without the insults.
Anyway...
On Arrakis: early worm gets the bird. Magister mundi sum!
The point being what so many Slashdot posters have said before:
People hate buying shit.
People love buying things they enjoy, because they want to see more of them made.
Or, to put it another way, consumers aren't stupid, they understand the power of their own dollars. People are just as smart as (if not smarter than) the RIAA/MPAA bosses: they won't waste their cash until they know their cash won't be wasted.
Solution to the problem: create a product that people WANT TO SUPPORT and that people WANT MORE OF and it will sell well FOR THOSE REASONS.
Anything else is just attempted blackmail and theft from consumers' pockets.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
If we were told who the sponsor of any poll is, I bet the majority on /. could give the results within 5 points.
Before a single question was asked!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Perhaps movie studios should in addition to the previews which especially with the bad movies, tend to show the 5 minutes of good stuff only. Why not let people download say the first 15 minutes of a movie for free and then people can decide whether they want to pay to see the rest of it.
You lose!
You lose, because you're not smart enough to realize that things that don't have a physical presence (well, not a physical presence in the sense most people are used to), can have value.
What you fail to understand is the basic economic principle that ideas have value. Since a song is just someone's idea put into practice, the song has value. If you increase the number of copies of that song in circulation, but you don't increase the amount of money that is being paid to the artist*, then you are lowering the overall value of the idea. Simple math, basic principle. You can argue that ideas should be free because they can't be easily contained physically, but you'd have to be stupid to do that, as you'd have no basis for charging people for everything from music to movies to software and beyond.
Since you are destroying that value while gaining something of theirs, you are, in fact, depriving the artists* of something, which is theft. You lose.
* Don't give me shit about the artists not getting the money. That's not anyone's fault but the person who inked their name on the contract.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
When did I stop trusting sponsored research?
This sounds like a "When did you stop beating your wife?' question. I've never trusted sponsored research, where "sponsored" is defined as "paid for by a private company which stands to benefit from the findings of said research" and "research" is not used in the sense of basic research, but the sense of "market research" or "opinion poll." Such "sponsored research" is tainted by the very fact of who sponsors it.
After all, when was the last time you saw "sponsored research" that found the sponsor's product/solution to be a pile of crap compared to a competing one?
Coming up with such a result would be the best way to ensure that:
1) It would be suppressed and buried forever in the sponsor's biggest and most secret safe, or just destroyed outright;
2) You'd never again be used for research by that sponsor, even if your findings were true and accurate. They weren't sponsoring you to find the truth, they were sponsoring you to find that their product or solution was the best, and you were expected to choose/manipulate data and load questions such that the desired conclusion would be "proven."
Sponsored research should more properly be called an extended press release.
If the study said that 1 in 4 Internet users have downloaded a film, you can't make any conclusions about the proportion of American Internet users who've done so.