MPAA: Math is hard

[Sonomaa]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j33C ... wD8UB6S0O2

MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study

By JUSTIN POPE – 22 hours ago

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.

The MPAA says that's still significant, and justifies a major effort by colleges and universities to crack down on illegal file-sharing. But Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, says it doesn't account for the fact that more than 80 percent of college students live off campus and aren't necessarily using college networks. He says 3 percent is a more reasonable estimate for the percentage of revenue that might be at stake on campus networks.

"The 44 percent figure was used to show that if college campuses could somehow solve this problem on this campus, then it would make a tremendous difference in the business of the motion picture industry," Luker said. The new figures prove "any solution on campus will have only a small impact on the industry itself."

The original report, by research firm LEK, claims the U.S. motion picture industry lost $6.1 billion to piracy worldwide, with most of the losses overseas. It identified the typical movie pirate as a male aged 16-24. MPAA said in a statement that no errors had been found in the study besides the percentage of revenue losses that could be attributed to college students, but that it would hire a third party to validate the numbers.

"We take this error very seriously and have taken strong and immediate action to both investigate the root cause of this problem as well as substantiate the accuracy of the latest report," the group said in a statement.

Terry Hartle, vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents higher education in Washington, said the mistakes showed the entertainment industry has unfairly targeted college campuses.

"Illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing is a society-wide problem. Some of it occurs at college s and universities but it is a small portion of the total," he said, adding colleges will continue to take the problem seriously, but more regulation isn't necessary.
On the Net:

* http://www.mpaa.org

math is hard wut?

[Michuru]

Lawl, that's funny. Blame everything on the college student why don't ya?!

What's weird is, I assumed most of the illegeal downloading was from the college student as well. But, I guess with all of the torrenting programs out there, that's probably where the real problem is at.

[Cephius]

Anti-piracy organizations exaggerating the truth when it comes to P2P usage? NEVER!

Sup OiNK

[Khamsin]

How do they determine how many people aren't buying their stuff that otherwise would have had they not had access to file sharing networks? Versus those who download something only because it's freely available to them, but otherwise would not have bought it, and so did not cost the company anything.

[Cephius]

How do they determine how many people aren't buying their stuff that otherwise would have had they not had access to file sharing networks? Versus those who download something only because it's freely available to them, but otherwise would not have bought it, and so did not cost the company anything.

Bingo. It's all (un)educated guessing. While obviously some people see a CD/game/movie they want, and use P2P to obtain it for free, there are tons people who download games movies and especially songs that they would have never bought otherwise. I know tons of people also who purchase games or CDs if they feel the developers or musicians deserve it after playing their game. Flawed logic maybe, but still no excuse for the industry to fabricate stats, paint torrent admins as Satan, ect.

[Aerin]

Personally this is what I do as a college student:

Never buy CD's,
Sometimes buy movies,
Buy as many games as possible.

But I don't do any illegal sharing or downloading, I swear.

[Marsala]

This obviously means we need to start downloading more! Download, go!

[thestalkmore]

Downloaded No Country For Old Men and Juno last night.

[evilbau]

I'm totally not surprised they inflated the numbers. What I'm curious about is why they feel the need to come forward with their 'mistake'. I wonder who called them out on their numbers that necessitated them to release a 'mea culpa, we added wrong'.

[Kaisha]

Lower the cost of living on campus and maybe students will have the fucking cash to actually watch a movie legally.

[Lockecole7]

Lower the cost of living on campus and maybe students will have the fucking cash to actually watch a movie legally.

Basically...to be honest people are still spending money, just in different aspects of their life. Things that once were a commodity now are mainstream givens. Sure I don't buy CDs anymore, I also didnt buy $400 phones and $400 for the 2 Ipods I have, 10 years ago. $800 is probably more than I've spent on CDs combined in my whole life. (approx.)

Companies just need to invest their profits in other places...there's money to be made, it's just going to different companies and places. Keep up with the times or you'll go under, no different than any other era. Also, 90% of what I download I would usually never think of buying. If I don't see a movie I'll download it because I missed it. Every movie I've REALLY wanted to see recently I've always caught in the theatres because watching an action movie on a 17inch screen is night and day.

[Julian]

I wonder how they calculate their "losses"

What about people who never would have bought the stuff in the first place? lol

[Ryany]

It has always bothered me how anti-piracy organizations calculate their losses as if everyone was going to buy some expensive program such as Autocad. I suppose some homeless guy that hotwires a Ferrari was going to buy one of those too.

I'll even be bold enough to say that piracy HELPS by giving them free promotions. If I like a movie good enough, I'll buy the damn DVD.

One more thing, how about how it was cheaper to make a DVD than a VHS tape when they made the switch about 10 years back. Instead of charging less for DVDs like most companies do with lower production costs, they jacked prices up. I know there obviously has been inflation, but I'd bet production cost drops have outdone inflation. I also realize that you are paying for the creative work of the movie and not just production costs, but some of the savings should have been passed on to the consumer like you would see in any fairly contested business.

[Priran]

This error sounds completely intentional on the MPAA's part imo, probably in an effort to get legislation passed quickly.

And for every movie I pirate (which are almost always old movies to begin with) I probably pay for a movie ticket 5 or 6 times.