Slashdot Mirror
How 136 People Became 7 Million Illegal File-Sharers
Barence writes "The British government's official figures on the level of illegal file sharing in the UK come from questionable research commissioned by the music industry. The Radio 4 show named More or Less examined the government's claim that 7m people in Britain are engaged in illegal file sharing. The 7m figure actually came from a report written about music industry losses for Forrester subsidiary Jupiter Research. The report was privately commissioned by none other than the UK's music trade body, the BPI. The 7m figure had been rounded up from an actual figure of 6.7m, gleaned from a 2008 survey of 1,176 net-connected households, 11.6% of which admitted to having used file-sharing software — in other words, only 136 people. That 11.6% was adjusted upwards to 16.3% 'to reflect the assumption that fewer people admit to file sharing than actually do it.' The 6.7m figure was then calculated based on an estimated number of internet users that disagreed with the government's own estimate. The wholly unsubstantiated 7m figure was then released as an official statistic."
I actually had several feelings about this summery, because:
1) Usually pro-filesharers try to make it sound like filesharing is usual activity and try go for most or 70-90% user share
2) The summary tries to paint this study bad because it "downsides" the amount of filesharers
3) The rant about examining only 1,176 people for the study - in which case the same kind of tv viewer statistics and other studies are made in what case.
So could someone please explain *why* is it a questionable research. It is like every other study where you study small amount of people and make estimates based on it to reflect whole population. Usually this amount of people also gives somewhat correct results on the whole population. Theres some error margin, but its close enough.
So what is the point of this story? That statistics researches use only minor subset or people to do their research instead of asking from everyone? They always have.
That's what I was thinking. The summary makes it seem that estimating the number that high is outrageous. I certainly wouldn't wager any money that it's significantly higher than actual piracy.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
there is a question that needs answering
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
[**] You need to be a loyal listener to understand the choice of phrase.
Whenever you estimate a statistic like that, you should also indicate the level of uncertainty surrounding the estimate. Why are they not reporting the upper and lower bounds of the confidence interval surrounding that estimate?
They think that a single copy of a song is worth over a hundred thousand dollars too. They claim to lose more in revenue each month than the GDP of most countries. All because of those dyyyeaaarrrn pirates. Enron looks positively boring in comparison to the accounting techniques the recording industry uses. None of this is news. About the only people that buy this crap are judges and legislators -- the rest of us are almost universally of the mindset that a bag of potato chips has more value than most of the recording industry's portfolio.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Using file-sharing software does not equate to sharing files illegally. I admit to using BitTorrent to download Fedora ISO's, and there's nothing illegal about that.
Some of the estimation steps might be sketchy, but the basic practice of estimating a population proportion from a sample of that population is not particularly questionable. That's how almost all studies of populations work, because taking censuses of all people in a country is rarely feasible. We have century-old statistical theory on how to put bounds on the sampling error, too, assuming the sample was indeed random.
You could have a whole slew of these stories if you really objected to that basic methodology, e.g. nearly every estimate of N million people suffering from a disease or disorder is based on a sample.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
That 70%* of all statistics are wholly or in part made up
*This number created by taking a sampling of 300 statistical comparisons and then noting that most statistics are based entirely on fiction so multiplying that number by 6
Where's that cap to the Decanter of Endless water???
Drawing inferences to the broader population from a sample of about a thousand is a totally accepted and scientific practice. There are innumerable ways you can screw it up (most having to do with the sampling procedure being biased) but in principle there's nothing wrong with saying that 12% of a sample of 1176 implies about 12% of a population. The upwards adjustment to 16% is plausible given that social desirability bias is a known problem with surveys but a bit more of a judgement call and the numbers adjusting for this should never be presented out of context of some pretty serious hedges.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if there were seven million illegal file sharers in the UK. It's hardly an underground thing any more is it?
"If they facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
~Albert Einstein
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
In the 70's Shirly Williams destroyed the British educational system based on political bias, almost everything she did was wrong and did not work. 30+ years later, most of the Civil Service does not understand statistics or any numerate discipline, these idiots now advise the pols!
This stuff does not have ANY substance and certainly dosn't deserve the description Research. It is ignorant crap.
Why are we surprised that nothing that New, or Old Labor does works?
maybe the authors of the study were taught math skills through unschooling?
weinersmith
using file sharing software does not mean you pirate software or media.....
136 out of 1176 people in households with internet connections admitted to having used file-sharing software (source: the summary)
18.3 million households in the UK had internet access at time of polling in 2009 (source: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=8 )
136/1176 * 18.3M ~= 2.12M
Not sure if "having used file-sharing software" means that they downloaded / distributed at least 1 item - say, a song - via said software and that they had no actual rights to do so (you know, as most people use file-sharing software to distribute Linux distros, or have simply 'used it' but didn't actually download or upload anything... *cough*)...
But let's presume it does.
Then let's take the low price in iTunes UK of GBP 0.79 per song, then the music industry 'lost' ('cos obviously people had no intention of buying that song that they didn't download / distribute because they were downloading a Linux distro instead *cough*) about GBP 1,671,897.96.
Well, that's peanuts, innit.
TTWTF here is that someone believes there are only 7 million file sharers in the UK. sure that figure is bullshit, but the number should be a hell of a lot higher not lower.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
It is called Probability. That's is how all polls work. As long as the sample is random it is very effective.
This is yet another example as to why the BBC is the finest broadcasting and journalistic organisation on the planet (I've never worked for them, sold to them or have any other financial connection other than the license fee).
They actually investigated something created by an industry group and found it to be bollocks and then reported it. The BBC are arguably the most "socialist" organisation in the democratic world (funded by a tax on everyone for the benefit of everyone) and yet they still question and challenge everything.
The US seriously needs something that questions vested interests and rubbish statistics as much as the BBC. Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are just comedians and FoxNews is just comedy.
Given a choice between the first amendment and the BBC, I'll take the BBC; its demonstrated more freedom of speech in a week than the US media has in a decade.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
O "Statistics are like a drunk with a lampost: used more for support than illumination."
O "The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself."
Tick one.
time to get 1984 as obligatory reading before anyone gets a say in the subject
I have a friend in England who was telling me that they actually focused on trying to make younger people the demographic for this study ... and obviously younger people are more likely to fileshare.
I wish this was more than an unsubstantiated rumor, but I couldn't find anything online about it.
> Work backwards from the undisputed declining sales figures of the recording industry.
The main reason for declining sales is the fact that CD sales during the 90s were artificially boosted by people replacing records and tapes with CDs... then replacing them again when remastered CDs were released a few years later. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event for the recording industry that won't be repeated during our lifetimes.
People re-bought CDs they already owned in analog (or optimized-for-analog CDs) because they represented an epic improvement in quality by just about any meaningful standard over the analog media they replaced. Everything that's come out since CDs has only been cheaper, shittier-sounding, or intolerably-crippled by DRM.
Here's an idea for the music industry: ditch the DRM'ed formats, and roll out a music format on DVD media with 96KHz 32-bit stereo PCM. Make the discs gold-colored, call it something like "X-fi", and sell them for $24.95. You'll win on all counts -- genX'ers will go back into highschool mode and buy them to show off how rich they are and/or pretend they sound sufficiently better than 16-bit CDs to justify spending ~twice as much on them, and the fact that every disc will be ~4-8 gigabytes will serve as self-limiting DRM for the next decade or so. Just make sure they still have the MOST compelling consumer benefit intact (and reason why people who buy CDs still DO buy CDs): it's a flawless first-generation master to use for making all your "working" copies for everywhere else.
It could be that file sharers are slightly more likely to have excluded themselves from or refused to participate in the study.
I certainly wouldn't wager any money that it's significantly higher than actual piracy.
Why not?
Given the difficulty determining an reliable answer, you could probably wager any money at all and not have to pay up.
Have fun trying to collect on your bet.
We need a "+1 -- nice sig" moderation.
is assuming file sharing == illegal file sharing. As others have pointed out, that alone makes the rest of the conclusions meaningless. My stat class said sample size should aim to be around sqrt of population. Of course, smaller samples just lower the confidence intervals. The 1000 people (sqrt(10^6)) is at least in the ball park for a population of 30 million.
Can I hire these guys to make me money? Seriously, I've never seen number fudging like this.
Om, nomnomnom...
This survey "saved or created" seven million file sharers.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
This is almost as cliche in arguments of statistics as the car analogy is on slashdot, and it's the sign of a scoundrel. If you actually had a first year stat student's understanding of stats you'd know where the weaknesses actually are, and where all the rest of the smoke blown in this discussion goes laghably wrong.
So let's apply some first year stats to the issue.
First, the sample size. Whether it is numerically large enough to be useful is a matter not only of it's size but also the number of positive results. IOW, a sample size of 1176 is too small if you found 3 of what you're looking for, but if you found 136 (11.6% of 1176), you have plenty of samples. The question is then only whether you had a representative sample.
My next concern would be precision. Using data with three or four significant digits (136, 1176) to make conclusions to seven significant digits (11.56463%) is silly, but that doesn't seem to have happened here. The only number in all of this that is fishy is the 16.3% number. To get three significant digits they'd have to know the number of lying households to that precision. If they had another study that determined this number they might very well have a number to that precision, but I'm assuming they just guessed.
That's still not a problem. If you guess, you run your confidence interval through your formulae (here it's a simple product) to put a range on your results. If it's a from-your-ass guess you might put a 100% failure estimate on your low end (i.e. there might be no lying households at all) to arrive at a conservative range. Here, it looks like they used an estimate of 40%. They should have (and might have; I didn't RTFA) run the un-adjusted 11.6% through the formulae to get a conservative low-end range.
Anyway, the number they finally used was 7%. One significant digit. That doesn't imply the same precision as, say, 6.7% would. In fact, if their figure for the number of lying households really was accurate to one digit (i.e. 35-45%) then rounding their final result to one digit was the correct procedure. If it was just a guess they should have run the absolute low estimate (probably, zero lying households) through to get a range.
So, with actual first year stat knowledge it's possible to actually state what might be wrong with the study, and not resort to "any first year stat student" hand-waving. It's clear that the most-cited criticism (the sample size) is the result of ignorance and group think, not actual knowledge of statistics.
Pulled out my stat's book and did some rough calculations in estimating Proportion.
Used a population size of 58,000,000
Their point estimate of 0.116
Z(0.025) = 1.96 for a 95% confidence level (2 SD)
With a sample size of 1176, I get a error of plus/minus 1,102,000.
There would need to a sample size of 10,000 to get the error of plus/minus 570,000.
I have not purchased any music for myself since 1986 when I was a kid. MP3's first started to appear in 1994, Napster in 2000. I do not live in the UK, I am in the US, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of people even in developed countries do not purchase music at all anyway. Our numbers are growing I think. The record companies are so up their ass in how awesome they are that they forget most people don't give a shit. More and more people find other ways to entertain themselves. I do listen to music and the sources I use do not require money or illegal activities.
PS Check out Ronald Jenkees for some good music. About the only stuff I might end up buying since 1986, it's good.
Conficuous say, "Pull number from ass, reliability sh*tty..."
I haven't bought a single CD since the RIAA began to wage its war on its customers. Lars will forever be invited to rot in hell, so far as I'm concerned.
Nor, however, have I pirated, copied, "borrowed," stolen, or in any other way illegally obtained copies of music since then.
That music has declined in quality for a while, and that people don't need to replace their record and tape collections, may have more to do with those declining numbers. The market saturated, went in to a slump, and during that period the RIAA screwed themselves.
BTW - the fact that I can record music using relatively cheap hardware these days helps a lot too; we don't really need the mega-shops anymore when people can get together and make their own stuff really cheaply. There is no natural monopoly anymore. The RIAA can't claim a stranglehold.
For all intents and purposes it is a tax, however the way it is raised is important.
Here in Australia we have a similar institution. However rather than being funded by a specific fee it's income is provided from general taxation revenue.
This can pose a threat to it's independence by making it more beholden to the government of the day for it's revenue stream.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I fully agree with the way the math was calculated.
After all, since it takes a woman on average 9 month to carry a fetus to term, therefore it would take 9 women 1 month to carry a fetus to term. Simple math for simple people.
on teh internests its teh maths what duz it.
How did Todd Snider put it? The point being - lies - damn lies and statistics.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
I'm really not sure if this is a damned lie or a statistic.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
For measuring ball bearings produced by a machine, statistics make some good sense. After all, if the average size of a bearing measures 3.05mm, +/- .1mm, a curve can be made that measures meaningfully if a specific batch of bearings differs from the mean and so detect when a machine is coming out of tolerance, long before the bearings produced become unsatisfactory.
When doing studies such as this one, they become less meaningful. If, for example, the report is to be meaningful, the understanding of the questions by the respondent, and their applicability to the statement of the report must be understood. Since to disclose the text of the report to the respondent prior to their response would spoil the result, their understanding of the context of the question is inevitably suspect.
And then there's the question of simply understanding the question in the general sense. In an environment where three standard deviations of the question "are you on fire?" nets 80% of a sizeable sample, one must presume that analysis of more subtle questions will not yield meaningful results.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
650 MB is more than Enough space for "an album"'s worth of music. If you need more quality than a CD offers, consider that you could compress down to 650 from some arbitrarily perfect "master" and do significantly better than the uncompressed CD standard.
1GB flash drives are almost trivially cheap now, and I'm sure mask ROMs could be even cheaper, if anyone bothered to make them in that size. So there's really no reason to expect optical media will continue for very long in the music world. Basically: as soon as they realize they can put a crypto chip on the same IC as the memory controller and have "perfect" DRM and a device that people can jog with, they're going to work hard to phase out optical media.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Educated people try to trick people with their education. Statistics are obviously made-up by people that think they can confuse people with their supposed knowledge of math. So all this is meaningless drivel.
Next, if you have broadband and are under 30, you have been trained from birth to pirate. You might not call it that, but you are doing it. Period. The number of people downloading stuff that are over 30 is smaller and smaller as they get older. Probably your 85-year-old grandmother doesn't pirate stuff. Everyone under 30 does, so you might as well get used to it.
This survey is about as realistic as a masterbation study in 1950. You run around and ask people "Do you beat off?" Of course 90% of them say "No", especially in 1950. You ask people today "Do you pirate?" and you get about the same level of response. In both cases, the right answer is a lot closer to 100% than anyone is comfortable knowing.
How much money is being lost? Everyone knows down deep in 2009 terms the answer is zero - nobody pirating would have paid anyway. It is all free today. Movies, music, software, books, whatever. If it is digital, it is available for free. Now in 1950 terms, it is millions and billions of dollars, pounds, marks, francs, whatever. But we're not living in 1950 anymore.
Now this does mean that there really isn't any money in movies, music, software, books or anything else in digital form anymore. But that is just something that people are going to have to get used to.
Assume nothing. Google is your friend.
Google: sample size
First result has all you need.
And liars figure.
The best way to shut these slime-oids up would be to conduct a forensic audit of their royalty payments to artists. I bet not one of the companies would come out clean.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Real statistics come with a margin of error. I bet in this case the error is infinite.
Hey, don't forget about non-RIAA artists. Refusing to do business with the RIAA doesn't mean giving up music.
As is usual (been going on forever).. the whole issue of file sharing and what's illegal and what's not, is clear as mud. Here you have a survey that is asking if someone has used file sharing software.. and then claims that by extrapolating numbers that there are a huge numbers if file sharers.. ok so far.. but then it makes the leap and says that these are "illegal" file sharers.. It would have been more informative to ask those that answered the question as users of the software, do you make songs or movies available for download, or do you just download ? .. these have different legal positions (although maybe not on the UK ?)
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
The main reason for declining sales is the fact that CD sales during the 90s were artificially boosted by people replacing records and tapes with CDs... then replacing them again when remastered CDs were released a few years later. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event for the recording industry that won't be repeated during our lifetimes.
I used to think this but lately I'm not so sure. My feeling is that since the 1950's and the creation of the music recording industry, we have seen an immense amount of music being produced for (or in the hope of) profit. Before then, when people played and listened to music for entertainment, the amount of music produced was far lower becuase there was no industrialised famework to channel funds, cultural cachet and other benefits to both musicians, and more importantly, their record labels distributors and publishers. Now, however we are seeing the return to the ancient ways: rip mix burn, people being able to make and listen to music without any involvement from anyone else. But the huge difference between now and the pre-1950's situaiton is that we have been led to believe that ALL music is wonderful, that the act of creating it deserves remuneration by right, and that it is somehow a sacred commodity. That, however, is bullshit. We are now able to see that bullshit and will come to realise that a) there is FAR too much production of music (indeed arts of all kinds) and the b) most should and will not see the light of day if left to the "free market" of listeners.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Listen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00mcwv5/More_or_Less_04_09_2009/
Archive: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5PPRZ6Y0
Everyone knows that 95% of statistics are made up on the spot. So whats the problem?
Could someone please tag this: 'liesdamnedliesandstatistics' please?
Much thanks!
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
And Proud.
I download FOSS and CC Music from Torrents!
"Why would the solution to something that is not easily enforceable be to make it legal? "
You answered it yourself - it's not easily enforceable.
What the RIAA/MPAA is trying to do is to get the governments and police forces of the world to enforce something which can't be enforced. The amount of money which could be sunk in this black hole if they achieve it is unthinkable.
The real problem is that the RIAA has spent the last ten years with their hands over their ears going "LALALALALALALA, we're not listening". Listening to customers is usually seen as good business practice, but they're not doing it.
The world has changed, people don't listen to CDs any more, they listen to mp3, and they want the singles, not a CD with one decent track and a load of filler.
Apple listened and their iTunes business is doing very well thank you very much.
The other elephant in the 'enforcement' room is that DVD sales are booming year on year almost in line with the drop in CD sales. Maybe the public is buying DVDs instead of CDs...? Nah, it couldn't possibly be market forces at work. We'd better spend billions of tax $$$ on law enforcement to protect the buggy-whip makers, just in case...
No sig today...
"The 6.7m figure was then calculated based on an estimated number of internet users that disagreed with the government's own estimate."
As in... for every person that uses the internet and is going to disagree with out estimate we will add one to the total.
6.7m people disagree with the government's estimate.
They *DID* try the DVD format and selling it at that price. It was called DVD-Audio. It flopped.
The reason?
CD is "good enough", just like MP3 is often "good enough" to the majority of people.
Long live mediocrity.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
by itself. If you share content that is copyrighted in your country, to which you do not have appropriate distribution rights for that country, then you MIGHT be doing something illegal.
When i download my favorite Linux distro via BitTorrent i am NOT doing something illegal. Having used a File Sharing program does not mean i have ever used it for any illegal purpose.
136 people admitted using file sharing software, they did NOT admit to using it for illegal purposes!
Why have we allowed the assumption that File Sharing = Illegal to become so commonplace?
I am outraged this is not the first point of contention for this study.
http://xkcd.com/605/
Seriously. No one posted this?
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
I believe that I am correct by suggesting that most file-sharing are not usually done with file-sharing software. Files are mostly being shared on warez forums and a few blogs. File sharing software's really don't make up a huge portion of the file-sharing that really goes on.
So only 136 people in the UK file share? Sounds like it's not a very big industry.
This just goes to show that 87% of all statistics are completely made up.
This theory gets trotted out at Slashdot fairly often in these discussions. It's entirely bogus. Vinyl LPs that people actually listened too wore out or were scratched much more easily than CDs, and had a much higher general replacement rate. Furthermore, cassette tapes and 8-track tapes also wore out much more easily, and were portable. People often bought the same album in two different formats. So, with as much evidence as you have, I'll claim that the advent of the CD actually reduced the rate of re-purchase of the same album.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Why isn't a governmental agency like the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP) not required either, to conduct its own research or review the conclusions it presents as fact for accuracy? And why is government not required to cite its sources and define the methods used to determine the official number of people it is accusing of illegal activity?
I understand a capitalist economy/philosophy assumes that money makes the world go 'round. But any consideration for democracy whatsoever demands that policy debate be informed with respect for reasonably determined fact. This implies that the policy makers use objective, unbiased means sources for determining what those facts they use for deliberation, something lacking when BPI stacked the deck using Jupiter Research's fabrications.
No one in their right mind, unless they sought a biased result in the first place, could reasonably state that Jupiter's methods were designed for objective results. I would love to be able to review the terms and conditions of Jupiter's 'research' contract and to have been privileged with an understanding of the conversations that would define their actual performance. (Note: Having had the dubious pleasure of meeting with some of their 'researchers' I am not at all surprised by any of this. First and foremost they are for hire. Everything else is negotiable. Forrester/Jupiter, IMHO, should be required to represent themselves as a PR firm, not a research company.)
There is obviously no accountability built into a system that can be so easily represent bias toward business financial interest as synonymous with those of society.
Oh, but this is Britain... where Royalty is still revered, and few people seem to acknowledge that that the monarchy created and used a church to support Divine Right and Noblesse Oblige. And I'm in the states where people actually believe that the wars in Iraq were waged to promote a respect for Rule of Law!
Good God! Will someone not wake me up?
Call me a snake in a business suit if you want, but I would and have done the same thing to get my way. Round up^x = profit.
If I had mod point I mod you up.
You are aware that World of Warcraft uses BitTorrent to distribute the updates? So I welcome you to your new world a castrate.
The More Or Less home page is http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd, and it links to the current and previous programmes.
People will not buy them again in an even higher quality. Barely anyone cares about quality anymore - they listen to compressed music on a poor format (mp3) on a portable device using low-fi earbuds.
If quality is such a big argument - why isn't blu-ray doing better than it is?
Laws, all laws are based on the belief, fact and foundation that it's in the name of the majority by the majority for the majority. Before religion, law the nature ruled. Since religion brough the first government and organized laws, it was under the power of God. Once the seperation of religion and government, law is now for the majority not the moral.
As it stands now the minority with power make the laws. Copying music isn't morally wrong, it hurts no one. It may stop money (just as made up as the music itself) but that is it. Money itself is an art so you exchange services and goods for art. If you pay for internet and you get music from it, it's a fair trade. Who can put a price on how long it takes to research, download and any other aspects that go along with obtaining said music isn't free. It might be free to you.
People of the wrong will soon realize that information wants to be free. If no new music, movies or art was to cease to exist from this date going forward, who would suffer? I wouldn't suffer, there is enough music, art, movies and such on this earth currently that I could spend my entire life listening, watching, reading, searching thru it that I would only touch 1% or less of it and that's only in english.
The point is, captialism has failed and the governments are trying its hardest to keep it afloat. Entertainment keeps the social masses in check. Soon, maybe my generation or most deffly the next, will rise into power and change the way this greedy world has become. Mod me anyway you want. But you can keep your new movies and new hollywood. I could care less if it all disappeared tomorrow.
You are merely trying to justify theft of intellectual property, which has led to a debasement of actual product itself and its absorption by the corporate machine for its own ends, and exemplified by today's ina
ne contemporary music (rock, hip hop, rap,etc.). You've been duped.
When you can legally acquire the same song with an actual quoted value of 1/20th of a cent - why then should I be charged up to 5000$ per copy if I have an illegal download?
The reflected amounts are completely scewed. The relative income for loss is extremely small for any single song file by a single person.
If they plan to apply a 'generalized' formula for loss of income then that formula should take into account the availability of different songs at their relevant rate that the consumer is spending.
Even a little 4 gb full ipod can be charged something like 1 million$ in retributive funds - while I can pick up the same 200 songs from starbucks for free.
A 1 million dollar lawsuit for 10$ worth of free songs from starbucks picks of the week!
This study proves that 23.7% of all statistics are made on the spot.
Since you have +/ sqrt(1176) error in any count. Compare to the 136 affirmatives and you don't know what the real percent is.
The reasoning goes: if you have taken a sample out from a larger group, your error is the chance that you accidentally counted all the affirmatives in the larger group in your selection. SD=34. 95% confidence=3x SD. Possible affirmatives in a second study identical: 34 - 238. 2.9% to 20%.
And it was a different DRM than standard ones, requiring new players to play it.
And the DRM used watermarking.
For those who are going to care about the higher frequency response, telling them that you're putting data there to piss about with the audio is not going to work. To those less convinced, how does it look when you say these two things:
a) This goes up to 96kHz, meaning it sounds much closer to the real sound!
b) We put watermarks on it, but it's done at the top end where you can't hear it!
They are mutually exclusive.
sorry, I wish I could say I was unclear, but no - I mispoke. Or rather, spoke incompletely, and the later "clarification" didn't fix it. "I haven't bought XYZ from the RIAA since blah..." is what it should have said. I hinted at that later in the comment, but yeah - wasn't clear.
I'm not an "indy" guy for the cutesy reasons most people are, and I have a hard time coming across indy stuff I actually like (since for many of them, the reason they're not RIAA is because the RIAA doesn't want them). But there are those who are indy who are good, and some who are even big.
It allows me to still like Prince - who is and was willing to give away music that he chose to give away, but will seek to protect that which he has not chosen to give away - while at the same time still being pissed off at Lars. I'm an Open Society advocate, but I also strongly feel that it should be done out of respect and choice, not out of theft or piracy. I'm not advocating individual instances of Open Society, but instead an entire cultural shift, which has to be a willing choice.