RayWPremium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
kudos:1 | 20.5 Billion in losses? Wonder how they came up with that figure? From what I was told, most companies with that theft rate would be out of business fast. Of course to our 'lawmakers', that is probably just a few days of spending.
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I am not lost, I find myself every time. |
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| So if I don't get a job at Blockbuster I know who to blame. What kind of polls does the MPAA take to come up with these figures and the fact is it still dwarfs what the top movies get at the box office.  |
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 swhx7Premium
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia
4 edits | reply to RayW
said by RayW:Wonder how they came up with that figure? From what I was told, most companies with that theft rate would be out of business fast.
The way they came up with that figure is in all probability the same way they come up with all their "losses to piracy" numbers: they •use some questionable method for estimating the number of units pirated, and then•multiply by the full retail price. This is the invariable method used by the MPAA (movies) and RIAA (music) and BSA (software police).
In other words, they first make up some high number of units. In the past for example, they have simply referred to the number of CDRs and DVDRs sold - assuming all of them were used for piracy! - never mind all the backups, home video, recordings from one's own TV or CD's, etc. (Likewise the BSA has assumed that a computer will have X units of commercial software, and multiply by the number of computers, and if sales are less than that, they assume the rest is piracy.)
Then they assume that every infringing copy would have been purchased at full retail price. They may be entitled to full retail price in some moral or legal sense, but to count it as a "loss" is to claim that they purchases would have been made if not for the piracy. This is realistic only on the MPAA/RIAA/BSA planet, on Earth it is bogus.
What's really disgraceful is that the media accept the grossly inflated numbers without having the journalistic integrity to question the bizarre and preposterous methodology. |
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