For those of you on college campuses following this sad saga:
- Original Message
Subject: Re: MPAA admits its statistics are fullof...u...errors
This is the famous study that MPAA has been waving around but has
refused to show anyone the basic data and methodology. Indeed, in the
fall of 2006, Dan Glickman promised to deliver a full copy of the study
to then Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter. As of yesterday, the staff was
still waiting for the study.
So we're now told by the MPAA: opps there are some flaws, and our 44%
loss due to college students is only 15%. They still refuse to recognize
the fact, as noted in the AP story below, that 80% of student live
off-campus and use commercial internet services, bringing the number
down to 3%. They other fascinating number in the MPAA/LEK College
Summary slides is that claim - without giving any reasoning - that
college students substitute 2.4 times that of average downloaders.
Last time I checked college students had far less disposable income than
average working stiffs. At the every least, I can't see them
substituting 2.4 times. But even if that number were cut in half, that
would mean the college problem amounts to 1.5% of their losses.
There are several ironies at work here. First, college network
administrators treat P2P illegal activity very seriously. Many already
have policies and educational activities in place. Second, the MPAA has
managed to convince the House Education Committee to put in an unfunded
mandate in the College Accessibility and Affordability Act.
Jim
Here's the AP story:
MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study
By JUSTIN POPE - 15 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.
-Original Message-
On Behalf Of Steve Worona
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 7:12 AM
To: lawfuluse at lists.publicknowledge.org
Subject: MPAA admits its statistics are full of...u...errors
For those who haven't seen it yet:
http://www.pr-inside.com/group-revises-figures-on-how-much-r398676.htm
and
http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/23/mpaa
So the 44% was really 15%, and it was all due to human error. So this
means -- what? -- it wasn't the dog? But let's not be too harsh;
remember,
