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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.
They must've gone to the RIAA School of Math.
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
Somebody needs to slap them around and make them quit bitching.
You don't trust sponsored "research", period.
http://www.archive.org/movies/collection.php?colle ction=feature_films
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?
The MPAA did say "According to British intelligence..." before citing that statistic.
Catwoman was a flop! It must be those darn internet pirates!
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
Wow, after research like that, I'd better take up smoking Winstons!
Maybe they took the number of movies downloaded and divided by the number of internet users? Wait, no, the stat would then be 'about every Internet user has downloaded 10 movies.'
(didn't rtfa)
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.
In a somewhat fitting coincidence ...
... but of course I saw in the status bar:
... but with errors in the page"
When I followed one of the links that advertises the survey results, the page loaded with javascript errors
"done
I didn't realize that the IE javascript engine could also filter for misleading biased survey scams.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
claims like this would work against them. They should be trying to convince the public that they're only against this "band" of pirates which is trying to harm the innocent population and ofcourse CHILDREN by their misdeeds.
By claiming that 1 in 4 internet users have committed a "crime", they'll (hopefully) make the Avg Joe realize that the "filthy" pirates are actually the next door Avg Smith or even the beautiful chick across the street being chased down and convicted in court.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
About 41% of all statistics are made up.
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
In order to stay "qualified" for these surveys and, in the end, get paid, many users will answer "yes" to every question that may lead to more questions. Internet surveys CAN be useful for market research purposes, but only when the respondents are confident that their answers won't effect their compensation rate.
If a survey will pay you $10 if you're a beekeeper and answer beekeeping questions, many people will claim to be beekeepers. Who's stopping them?
It's up to individuals to know enough about statistics in order to spot con jobs, much a kin to people knowing something about cars before taking theirs to a mechanic.
In both cases people are simply too lazy to care to learn.
Maybe the MPAA is trying RIAA-style FUD-math?
They didn't really mean that 1 in 4 people had downloaded a 700MB divx/xvid movie, but that since more users have broadband now, these "super-users" can rightly be counted as 24X normal users. :)
--
Power to the Peaceful
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.
3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
Ah, you found me!
You mean to tell me that if a study on movie piracy is paid for by the people who lose money from movie piracy, it's not going to be unbiased?
Yeah, right. Next, you'll be telling me that classes on copyright law sponsored by the RIAA are one-sided.
Dammit. They covered it in Apple and Games and IT as well. That sure is a lot of dupes. I'm still trying to figure out what this has to do with Linux.
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'm fairly young, and learned in school sponsored research by the Tabaco Companies saying smoking is good for you way back when.
And I always love that 95.43% of statistics are made up on the spot, 64.29% of statistics are distorted to bring about a baised conclusion, and 139.75% of both these types of statistics just don't add up.
I assume that everyone knows that the MPAA and movie studios are planning on starting to sue movie uploaders/downloaders starting in about 1 month (they were on 60 minutes a few days ago with a lot of propaganda).
All we have to do to stop these lawsuits by the RIAA is organize to protest the lawsuits. Unlike the music business, much of the movie business is vulnerable to protests and grassroots activism. THis is because a lot of the money from movies is derived from box office receipts at the multiplex cinemas, which pack in thousands of people each day. Thus, their main revenue source is quite concentrated. A few well-placed protest signs will lose them money every day. Typically, these multiplexes are on a freeway offramp. Two or three good signs placed strategically with a good message will cost them money.
See the freeway blogger at http://www.freewayblogger.com for more ideas on this technique....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
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.
From here:
Upholding a lower court decision issued in April of 2003, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled P2P technology is legal even if the software itself is used for illegal purposes.
"The technology has numerous other uses, significantly reducing the distribution costs of public domain and permissively shared art and speech, as well as reducing the centralized control of that distribution," Judge Sidney R. Thomas wrote in a unanimous opinion.
The three-judge panel acknowledged that copyright violations do occur on the decentralized P2P networks, but the companies owning and distributing the enabling software cannot be held liable for the infringements.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
hey, if 1 in 4 people have illegally downloaded music, thats a nice voting demographic for some politician. i should run on a pro-p2p pro-tech platform. who's with me!
www.gaian-mind.org - eco-punk/crust coop and collective | www.anarchistfederation.org - so cal anarchist federation
...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)
Internet Archive Feature Films
Way back in the good ol days, Congress decided Americans didn't need to drink alcohol anymore and forbade it. Actually changed the Constitution! Did that stop it from happening? No. Eventually, they amended the Constitution again to repeal their stupidity. The American people had spoken. They were going to have their booze no matter what the govornment decided was best for them.
Now, we have a similar situation. The People either do not care about patent and/or copyright violations, or are actively against them. The only people who advocate our current patent and copyright catastrophies are those trying to make a quick buck. (I throw both patents and copyrights out there, because those running linux kernels right now who read slashdot know there are patent violations in the kernel, yet are using it anyway, and I'd say 99% of us will continue to do so until they pry the keyboards from our cold dead fingers, no matter who thinks they own it. And for copyrights, go ahead and delete all that porn on your harddrives, because odds are very good you do not own the rights to have it. No? Didn't think so. Same goes for most music, ebooks, whatever.)
The point is, the People have spoken on this issue. They have said, "Copyrights and patents have the sole purpose of protecting the little guy from the big guy. Not the big guy from the next big guy and not the big guy from the little guy. It's purpose is not to help big companies enforce a monopoly on consumers."
Any politician who advocates persecution of fileswapping or using patents by the people(that's the purpose of having a patent system at all) does not deserve his office. Don't vote for them. Because they are not listening to what the People are saying.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
97.35124% of all statistics are made up, including this one.
On a serious note, 49% of Americans use dial-up. Do you think they'd even consider downloading a movie?
I say we all "sponsor a dial-up user", for ever movie they don't download, we download 2!
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
I was the one. I downloaded a movie from the internet.
It was a harried time, and temptation was great. In a weak moment, I succumbed.
I downloaded Michael Moore's "Farenheit 9/11".
The Register has (had) it.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Well, in some fields, especially science, sponsored research is frequently the only research we can get. However, marketing research should usually be taken with a grain of salt. Same thing goes with usage/common practice research when people are wanting to hunt down everybody participating in a certain action, such as downloading movies.
But 1 in 4 internet users download movies? Are we counting freely-distributed porn films or not? If so, that number is a lot higher. If not, it's a really low number.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
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.
Someone should start a company that does independant verification of such studies and statistics. It could be payed for with a flat rate for everybody who wants to certify the clear-and-accurateness of their study and be rated with gold stars on the company's report card. Sort of like what the BBB does but just to clear up all of this Microsoft, (R&M)PAA, SCO, etc. 'independant study' business can be somewhat legitimized.
-- Checking emails and kicking cheats `till the day I die.
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.
"There are 63 million broadband users (51%) and 61 million (49%) dial-up users in the US."
Error: Id10t detected
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?
Lets say that this Twinkie represents the normal amount of junk research, junk science, and FUD produced by special interest groups and picked up by the media. Judging from this morning's sample it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.
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
When did you stop trusting sponsored 'research'?
When I started doing it.
Actually, as I started my Ph.D., someone I knew completed his. At the party we held after his defense, he said something that has stuck with me:
True story.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!
I agree with another response to your post. Someone has to pay for research, and sometimes an impartial study just isn't feasible because impartial people have no stake or interest in the outcome.
For instance, I'm personally in a group that has a particular interest in reducing the amount of light pollution that's produced by populated areas. There's little or no existing interest outside of our own group. About the only way we'd be able to get the attention of city planners and legislators is to produce our own study about the positive effects that more efficient and lower levels of lighting might have on safety and crime and so on, counter-intuitive to most people.
If such a study was simply thrown out by others on the grounds that we might be biased, it'd be extremely frustrating. If everyone took that approach, it would be difficult for anyone to argue anything. It would make much more sense and be more productive if people would simply argue with us based on the objective information that we provide with the study, and if necessary point out any flaws in our methodology.
This way we can either prove to people that we're right, accept that we're wrong, or go back and improve our methodology for another attempt. Perhaps it would be decided that the results we've presented aren't even important enough to warrant a change, but at least everyone knows where they stand based on honest, objective information.
You should accept research on its merits based on the information presented. If relevant information is missing, or if what's available shows that a sponsor is hiding or manipulating information to skew the results, then point it out and treat it accordingly. But please don't simply throw it out because it supports the view of whomever sponsored it.
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.
Connection speed:
I think at least one in four internet users use dial-up. At least. So to download a movie would take at least 50 hours on a good connection.
Demographics
So one in four is using Kazaa, BitTorrent, or similar, and knows about divx/xvid codecs, etc? Grandma on jetstream? It appears that a larger proportion of users don't even know not to open dodgy email attachments, or how to patch their OS, let alone find, download and play a movie.
...are made up. Come on, someone had to say it.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
If you read the Yahoo page at http://yahoo.pcworld.com/yahoo/article/0,aid,11579 3,00.asp then you will see the statistic is "The research reveals 37 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have downloaded a full-length motion picture from the Internet."
Also "24 percent of respondents reported that they had downloaded a movie online".
The 24% includes perfectly free-to-download stuff shorts like http://pocketmovies.net/ and http://www.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php
The 37%, being 'full length' is presumably meant to imply Hollywood releases, but can still include public domain stuff like the Prelinger material linked above, which includes full length movies.
It does piss me off that the MPA tries to associate every movie download as being of their copyrighted property; that's not so.
wouldnt a statistic of "one in four" people having downloaded a movie illegally merely discredit the MPAA and warn legislators that they need to wise up and make sure that laws make sense? Any time 25% of the population is guilty of something, it's time to re-think your definition of a crime.
So why would the MPAA lie about this? To purposely make themselves look less credible?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
You know, it's great fun to point out how the statistics are a lie, but what if they are true?
In a land with a government that rules by the people and for the people, is it really a good idea to condemn 1/4 of your population? At what point does the will of the people enter into the equation? Whether it's right or wrong is irrelevant, but whether it's the will of the people or not is the key question.
So, if the statistics are lie, then great, the MPAA is wrong.
If they're the truth, then the MPAA is still wrong.
Like what I said? You might like my music
"Deciding if something is wrong or right should not depend on how it effects the economy"
Isn't the whole justification for copyrights that its good for the economy?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
you can go to the Apple site and download trailers from upcoming big-time movie releases. My daughter does this all the time to see if a movie will be worth going to see.
Depending on the way they ask the question, this might have gotten her lumped in with people downloading movies, because she did technically download part of a movie.
The thing was that it was (a) Not the whole movie (b) entirely legal.
Now lets say 10% of all teens do this...Might that inflate the stats just a bit?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
ever since the Regan administration faked a commercial that showed a brainscan of a normal adult and a brainscan of a Cannabis user. The commercial showed a lively colored brainscan for the normal adult, and the one for the Cannabis user was all dull and dark. As it turns out, the brainscan of the supposed Cannabis user was actually from a patient who was comatose. There have been other "studies" regarding MDMA and it's affects on the brain that have recently been uncovered as bogus misinformation from the federal government. I don't use MDMA, but I for one would rather be told the truth about "drugs" and be allowed to make up my own mind as to whether I want to use it or not.
[T]he survey claims, among other hard-to-believe assertions, that 'about one in four Internet users have downloaded a movie.'
That's really not that hard to believe, considering they're talking about an average. The average human being is (roughly) 1/2 male and 1/2 female. All it takes for this "hard-to-believe assertion" to be true is for one user in a hundred to have downloaded 400 movies, something which I wholeheartedly believe from firsthand experience.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
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.
When did you stop trusting sponsored 'research'?
Ooh, I know this one! Is it when Dr. Nancy Olivieri tested a drug on patients only to find out it may actually be hamful? After the doctor decided to tell the patients the risks, a gag order was issued by the company funding the experiment.
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.