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Lies, Damned Lies, and the UK Copyright Industry

Posted by timothy on from the save-$19-million-by-not-buying-a-house-in-malibu dept.

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."

8 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. For god's sake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's the scumbags like RIAA gives lies a bad name. Lies keep marriage in tact, family together, friendship, gov't, you name it. Along comes RIAA and ruins lie's good name. Shame.

  2. Oh, really? by G-forze · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Big surprise. Everything that has come from this industry has been at best broad guesstimates, at worst intentionally spread lies. Trying to explain the demise of an obsolete business model without taking the obvious into account is hard!

    --
    "There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
    1. Re:Oh, really? by siloko · · Score: 5, Informative

      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!

    2. Re:Oh, really? by houghi · · Score: 5, Funny

      It always reminds me of a friend who tells he saved 1EUR by running after the bus instead of taking it. I always say he is an idiot and he should run after a taxi. That way he would save much more.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  3. Full story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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).

  4. Re:Lost? by FailedTheTuringTest · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  5. Downloading keeping "billions" inside the UK by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Interesting
    More than seven million Britons use illegal downloading sites that keep billions of pounds circulating inside the British economy rather than being sent overseas to US media companies or obscure tax havens, despite almost everything on offer being appalling rubbish no sane person would pay a penny for, according to unnamed researchers copying a passing number found in a 2004 press release from music industry lawyers trying to drum up business.

    Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy said the report brought home the impact illegal downloads had on the UK economy as a whole. "If we take as read the music industry's assumption that every download is a lost sale, then billions of pounds are freed up for ordinary people to spend of things of actual economic substance to keep local businesses healthy, rather than chasing phantom pseudo-value from things that have an inherent cost of production of zero. This makes the whole economy more efficient and lets money go where it is actually useful, rather than to Bono's numbered account in the Virgin Islands."

    The government says it will be hard to change attitudes to free downloading, particularly from the entrenched old media parasites. "Studies consistently show that downloaders buy more music. We have to stop this and get them downloading dodgy rips from BitTorrent, rather than official high-quality versions from iTunes."

    The report also noted that new, faster broadband services could increase file-sharing, which was already more than half of net traffic in the UK. The ISPs modestly declined credit for their part in helping Britain's financial future, noting that it was their customers, the great British public, who had voted with their browsers to do the hard work of keeping the country afloat.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  6. Broken Window Fallacy by mdwh2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.