Slashdot Mirror
MPAA Botched Study On College Downloading
An anonymous reader writes "The Associated Press reports that in a 2005 study the MPAA conducted through an outfit called LEK, the movie trade association vastly overestimated how much college students engage in illegal movie downloading. Instead of '44 percent of the industry's domestic losses' owing to their piracy, it's 15 percent — and one expert is quoted as saying even that number is way too high. Dan 'Sammy' Glickman's gang admitted to the mishap, blaming 'human error,' and promised 'immediate action to both investigate the root cause of this problem as well as substantiate the accuracy of the latest report.'"
What was done in the study? Survey forms etc?
While they are at least admitting that THIS report is highly erroneous, it does not even begin to address the plethora of similar reports they have bombarded the media and Internet with that have similar figures.
So... which reality are they going with? Agreeing that this report is highly off compromises many of their financial claims of the damages file sharing does... or perhaps they will just admit this report is wrong due to "human error" - but the others are right "Please believe everything else we are saying - even though it contradicts our admission of error here."
C'mon... who does the RIAA think they are fooling? (RIAA) retract all your ridiculous claims - or dont bother... the rest of us know the truth - and have for years.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Somehow it always happens to this kind of outfits. Conveniently, the press will jump on the story of those ugly meanies who steal from musicians, but when it's rectification time, that isn't news.
It's the kind of error whose magnitude is inversely proportional to the proximity of one's ass.
Fearmongering, obviously. "ZOMG IT'S 15 PERCENT" doesn't have quite the same impact as "OH LORD THEY'RE CAUSING NEARLY HALF OUR LOSSES".
Well before this ball gets too far ahead. Let's ask ourselves, if the MPAA can overestimated their "facts"? What makes anyone think that the opposition has underestimated theirs?
Maybe the teens were thinking, "It's a trap. Remember what Sony did?"
Did you even go to the link? It's an AP story which means every print organization in the US, both electronic and paper, is going to regurgitate it. It probably won't make the same headlines as the original figure did but it will still be in there.
Looks like they need some huge numbers to get their campus funding bill pushed through with all those nasty, torrent-blocking strings attached.
I have been slacking off as of late. I'll just have to triple my output from last semester, but I doubt everyone will so I'll have to compensate, maybe twice that? Does it count if I watch a movie again or show it to a group? Frankly, there isn't much worth downloading.
Just wait till they use the new stats to claim efforts are working but more still needs done.
The thing is, I don't think anyone CARES. Nobody I know even considers downloading from P2P wrong. Some of these people are indeed dense, but even with the smart ones they quickly connect the dots and realize that they aren't taking anything from anyone. Many people actually consider the few of us that download stuff from iTunes "stupid" (eloquent huh?) because I'm paying for something that's available for free in their minds.
And that's exactly what it is. Movies come on all the time on HBO. They don't pay beyond a small subscription fee to watch them (HBO runs $10-12 per month and broadcasts an insane number of movies in that period. If you watched every one subscription fees would be like $0.05 per movie). If you're willing to suffer broadcast you needn't even pay at all. Songs play for free all day long on the radio. The media companies have painted themselves into the corner where people see media as free because largely, it traditionally has been made available as such. Many people have spent their whole lives buying the few pieces of media that were important to them (a pirated copy of Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter series is not worth it for me - I want the real thing), and just recording the rest of it off of TV or the radio. P2P is simply the newest version of an old trick to these people, and you'll have a VERY hard time convincing them that it's wrong.
As such, this report saying 44% of college students pirate media will likely come across will all the impact of reporting that 44% of college students chop down trees at Christmas time.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Most folks I know gave up on downloading illegally- movies at least. Music is still a download staple. The movie files took too long, or it wound up corrupted or some geektard used the MOLOTOV9 video codec that only runs on mainframes in secret Russian gulags, or some other nonsense.
We all just copy Netflix/Blockbuster Online rentals and share via physical copies. The results are perfectly consistent.
This is the same industry that had the balls to say the movie "E.T." didn't make a dime.
And the "root cause" of their error can be attributed to their absolute requirement that they prove huge loses (on their imaginary profits) so they could go to congress and demand "something be done."
-- Will program for bandwidth
What do you expect when the content producers are the ones producing the news content?
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
When the decision of whether or not to allow Breathalyzer evidence into court came into play, they downplayed the inaccuracy issues by a factor of 10. I want to say they report inaccurate results 20% of the time and they claimed a 2% error rate, but you'll have to ask jeeves or google if you want the right numbers.
The parallel I see is that the damage is done and at this point it is unlikely to be undone.
They presented the argument they wanted to the people they wanted when they wanted to do it. Although many universities do not have programs in place to prevent piracy, the wheels are in motion and the fact that the decision to do so was based on inaccurate information will not stop anything.
This is the same industry that had the balls to say the movie "E.T." didn't make a dime.
The Writers' Guild of America strike puts the lie to that. The media producers are making boatloads of money, and the WGA wants their fair share as creators of a lot of the content.
By infringing on the copyright of big media, you hurt those who would provide you with what you want. There are many indie to small time producers out there putting shows online (I'll admit I don't know of many online-only movies), and by pirating instead of going to these people, you're hurting them. Either pay for the content or go to the indie producers, or go to something else who you'll inevitably help. But whileever you pirate, you're simply as bad as the MPAA.
Hmmm. I didn't go out to see a movie yesterday. That means I didn't give the theater $20. I stole from them!
Sorry, but stealing does not work that way. Theft means one thing and one thing only: To remove physical property from someone so that they may no longer use it and to keep it in your possession.
If you go into someone's house and use something, it's not theft. It's tresspassing.
If you break something of someone else's, it's not theft. It's vandalism.
If you take someone else's idea and claim it as your own, it's plagiarism. Not theft.
See, to steal is not the same thing as to infringe. They are two different words for a very good reason.
Besides, you're assuming that these people who download these movies would pay for them otherwise. Just because I wouldn't pay X dollars to see a movie doesn't mean I wouldn't pay X/2 to see it. Or, heck, some movies are so ridiculous these days, I'd only go to see them if someone paid ME. But I suppose others my settle for "free."
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
I said I see the similarity between 'stealing' and illegally copying movies
Actually, you said, and I quote, "it's called stealing" (seriously, it's easy for anyone to check, it's just two posts up, so you can't get out of this one, sorry). You didn't say "it's like stealing" or "it's similar to stealing", you said "it's called stealing". It's not called stealing. Yes, there are similarities to stealing, but using the word "stealing" for copying movies is AT BEST a metaphor, and like any metaphor, it's imperfect.
There is a marginal cost to the provider, however small, to *providing* a free ride at a theme park, in the form of wear and tear / maintenance, energy costs, property rentals and taxes, insurance and risk etc.. If someone copies a movie illegally from a friend over a computer network, the marginal cost to the provider is ZERO. They have not lost anything that they did not have before. They don't wake up poorer. They wake up EXACTLY the same as the day before. There isn't less money in the bank account, and they don't have to pay any penalties.
That doesn't condone illegal copying. Obviously if everybody copied, and nobody bought, the movie makers couldn't make money.
But it's not called stealing. It's the wrong word. That doesn't make it "less bad", we're not trying to justify it (I mean, I make my living making and selling software, and I have first-hand seen people pirating my own software) --- we're just trying to avoid broken metaphors that lead people to think about these things in an incorrect way.
'Society' doesn't make laws. Lobbyists write laws, which lawmakers (who owe their political well-being to the companies that lobbyists represent) then pass.
The implication of your question is that all laws must be inherently good for society, because they wouldn't be passed otherwise. This panglossian viewpoint ignores the fact that laws are overturned, changed, or reversed all the time.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of copyrights, patents & trademarks. I make a living creating works - and so do many people on slashdot.
Copyrights not only protect artistic works - but indeed they are the basis of the GPL (which protects major open-source software such as the Linux kernel). When you see a company or person break the GPL license - justice is quickly meted out here.
That said, the "problem" isn't with copyrights et cetera - it is consumer expectations.
At least in the USA, we've been very used to paying for "premium" works, and getting older works for free or near free. The major air networks routinely broadcast movies, shows, and music for "free." The ones paying for these are advertisers, obviously - but beyond that it's essentially free. I can record onto tape, share it with a friend, keep it in on a shelf.
For premium works we buy tickets, subscriptions, DVD's, hard-back books, COTS software, and whatnot. The average consumer spends a lot of money here, and they feel that "buying" the work entitles them to fairly use these works.
Herein lies the problem: Consumers expect to be able to watch/read/listen on their computer - and they want to do it for around the same price they're already paying. They want choice, freedom to share with a few friends, and what have you.
Consumers have been "fooled" into thinking it was all really free because broadcasters have been making it essentially "free" for years. But instead of a VCR or a casette tape, we want to use computers - and the internet.
Copyright holders then did a stupid thing. They blamed their customers for stealing, while at the same time broadcasters are busy pumping content over the air. They called us "pirates" and evil-doers. They said consumers are rapist.
Here's your solution then. Start distributing your works over the internet. Sell the premium content for a fair price and stop calling the internet evil. Sure, you can build in a few protections like watermarking or digital signing to catch the real pirates! But stop turning against your customers!
In other words - do what you do best, and stop worrying about the kids that are *stealing* your works. They did it twenty years ago with mix tapes and VCR's - and yet the product still sells. The thing is - people really DO want a quality product. It is about the experience, it is about feeling like your getting a fair value for your money.
It's time to start moving those models that work in real space onto the internet. Broadcast it, sell tickets, sell movies, market it, and make money. Stop suing grandmothers and kids - it makes you look like monsters.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.