Australian Government Calls BS On Bogus Copyright Industry 'Losses'

Legal Issues

from the about-freakin'-time dept

We’ve spent years complaining about the completely bogus stats put out by the likes of the BSA, the RIAA and MPAA about just how much “piracy” is costing them. These stats usually make a few really bad assumptions, such as the idea that every unauthorized copy is a lost sale. They also fail to take into account any promotional impact of the material. More recently, the MPAA has expanded on the already bogus stats by claiming that they’re even bigger because you need to take into account the ripple effect of the losses through other industries that support the movie industry. Of course, they conveniently ignore that (a) this is double counting and (b) those ripple effects counterbalance themselves by making more money available for other parts of the economy. The most unfortunate part about all these bogus numbers, however, is that they’re continually quoted in the press and by government officials as if they’re factual when they’re highly misleading.

That’s why it’s great to see this following bit of news, submitted by Greg Nelson. Apparently, the Australian government has done its own research into some of these numbers and the draft version of the report has found them to be a bunch of “self-serving hyperbole” that fail to explain clearly how these numbers are anything real. In fact, the report calls the numbers “absurd.” Specifically, they claim the numbers are “unverified and epistemologically unreliable.” They then worry about “the potentially unqualified use of these statistics in courts of law,” which is already pretty common. They also found that, despite repeated claims about a connection, there is no known connection between unauthorized file sharing and organized crime. It’s a bit surprising to see such bold statements out of a government document — and already the agency putting this together says it’s just a draft by a consultant, and suggests that the language will be toned down. In fact, they say that the language in the report is “hyperbolic” which is exactly how the report describes the copyright industry’s claims. Meanwhile, the industry representatives themselves brush off these accusations as if it’s a to-may-to/to-mah-to difference: “They’re entitled to say they’re not convinced, but not necessarily entitled to say it’s unverified.” Of course, he doesn’t say who verified the numbers or how they were really verified.