Posted on 01/23/2008 6:22:17 AM PST by steve-b
Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong.
In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus.
The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so.
But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss....
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
The MPAA will still get the legislation in Congress that they want. They have a powerful lobby in DC.
Not 44%, but 15%.
That is a 29% exaggeration. That represents a heck of allot of $$$$.
Are we surprised that crooks would lie?
It’s nearly 300%. 44% is almost 300% more than 15%.
It the total claimed loss was $1,000,000, then the claim of 44% being attributed to college students amounts to a $440,000 loss. If that loss is only 15%, the the newly claimed loss is $150,000.
$440,000 is almost 300% higher than $150,000.
But the main, salient point is that the Motion Picture Ass. of America (MPAA) lied. The Recording Industry Ass. of America, RIAA, lies, too.
Both of those Ass.’s lie.
Actually, the MPAA’s and the RIAA’s biggest mistake is their own existence...
Universities and students are low-hanging fruit. Nothing says they didn’t still have a 44% “loss”, just not all from students as they mistakenly thought—as if a download equals a lost sale...
This will give them the justification to go after ISPs and regular people.
Regardless of legislation, if college students wish to share and download music/video files, they will find a way.
The “lost revenue” argument is always one I find amusing.. it assumes that everyone who took it for free, would have bought it.... which of course we all know is not true.
I watch free movies on broadcast TV all the time I wouldn’t spend a dime on.
“Regardless of legislation, if college students wish to share and download music/video files, they will find a way.”
Indeed! Some schools now have their own, licensed music and video storage servers. Students with valid school accounts can log on, download, or stream, and it is all kosher. Fact is the mpaa and riaa are run by old folk who are really behind the power curve. Since they have misread the tea leaves, they are looking for an old-school (read “there oughtta be a law”) type of fix.
Stooooopid mpaa...stoooooopid riaa
Are these loss amounts based on the theory that everyone who downloaded a movie for free and watched it would have instead bought a ticket to see that movie at a theater? If so, they’re utter fiction, as anyone who’s taken one day of economics classes could tell you that when you reduce the price (in this case, to free) you greatly increase the quantity demanded.
Case in point: After Michael Moore said he hoped people downloaded his movies, I did. I have Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 on my computer. There’s no way in hell I would have ever paid one cent to see either.
We have the best congress money can buy.
I consider it a fact that the MPAA has been quoting such statistics to universities in order to intimidate them into extracting money from their student bodies to hand over the MPAA.
It seems to me that students in such universities would have standing to sue the MPAA. I hope some enterprising students do.
I doubt the universities themselves are particularly agrieved, but rather, that they've probably been somewhat happy to be intimidated and basically see the money as a justifiable wash, extracting from students as line-item additional fees to be paid to their Leftist coalition partners represented by the MPAA. Just as employers have been conditioned to hand over employees' taxes to the IRS, universities kowtow to the MPAA and hand over their students' money to keep from having exorbitant legal bills that would eat into their abilty to pay hefty salaries and benefits.
HF
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