Slashdot Mirror
Lies, Damned Lies, and the UK Copyright Industry
artg writes "Ben Goldacre writes about invalid and misleading 'science' in the Guardian. Here's
his report on the statistics behind a recent press story that reported illegal downloading to involve 120 billion pounds worth of material."
Full article is posted on Ben's blog at http://www.badscience.net/2009/06/home-taping-didnt-kill-music/ (sorry Ben for the slashdotting) - the guardian tends to remove bits of his writing in print/on their website (for space reasons I assume).
The comments to TFA (I guess I'm not a real ./er either) include links to a properly rigorous academic study (and some news articles) that shows that downloaders spend more money, not less: for every CD downloaded, they buy 0.4 additional CDs. The study's authors also "find evidence that purchases of other forms of entertainment such as cinema and concert tickets, and video games tend to increase with music purchases."
http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/eng/ip01457.html
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/03/6418.ars
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4718249.stm
Classic coup de grâce in the article: "Like I said: as far as I'm concerned, everything from this industry is false, until proven otherwise." Why are industry statistics still endlessly repeated in the media? It makes you wonder what market the newspapers using these fabricated stats are aiming for, because the majority of filesharers would laugh into their porridge at the thought of buying every film, track and OS they downloaded!
Exactly - this is basically the parable of the broken window. Also see: http://notnews.today.com/2009/06/06/downloading-keeping-billions-inside-the-uk/ .
Of course, I'm not surprised that the RIAA twist the truth, but to hear Government advisers falling for the fallacy? Either they are ignorant of basic economics, or they are intentionally being deceitful on economic matters. Either way, it's no wonder the economy is going down the tubes.