Tainted "Piracy" Statistics

newtley writes, "The music, movie, and software cartels claim 'piracy' is a Number One problem not only for themselves, but for the world as a whole and so successful are their continuing dis- and misinformation propaganda campaigns that they've been able to dragoon entire governments and police forces into acting as industry enforcers. But, says p2pnet, far from being at the top of the pile, movie and music piracy rank 16th and 20th, respectively, on a global index of illicit markets. (Software piracy ranks 7th.) And even those positions are subject to considerable doubt."

Comments

Re:Completely unsurprising

[dwandy]

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the media industry is small potatoes.

Until you look at the number that's important: gross profit available to purchase politicians. While the sales in these other sectors is far larger than media, the dispensible income (and concentration thereof) is no where near.

Intellectual monopoly laws create an enviornment of unprecendented disposable profit.
Couple that with a political system that demands bribery as a requirement to win and we have laws that are disproportionately strong for the industries' true importance in the economy.

Counting oranges alongside apples?

[cralewyth]

On the havocscope illicit markets list, Drug markets are measured alongside counterfeit products and pirated products.

The problem comes when figures for pirated & counterfeit products are from those industries, quotes of how much is lost... Now, somehow I doubt that the illicit marijuana industry value is based on how much that industry has lost. Considering that it is illegal in most countries.

So here we have two sets of figures - one which is basically "estimated loss on profit, based from industry" and the other is "estimated products sold".

Does anyone else see why this list isn't conclusive?