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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?"
Not every story on the AP wire will get published by newspapers that subscribe -- the editors choose what to publish and what not to. I doubt this story will make any but the lengthiest print publications, and certainly not headline any online ones.
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Just for sake of argument, let's say you're more than right and this story receives equal coverage on the news; let's say every person who saw the original story sees this correction. Now, it's just a survey, so people know it represents an estimate of the actual percentage. If you were to ask each person what they thought the actual percentage was, would they guess 15%? Or somewhere in-between 15 and 44%? Like my OP's title suggested, first impressions are important -- even when we're talking about numbers.
P.S. And about actually going to the link: come on, man, this is
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
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
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.
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.
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.