Lying About "Piracy" Around The World

from the here-we-go-again dept

Well, here we go again. The International Intellectual Property Alliance is getting ready to put out their annual report lying about how much intellectual property "piracy" there is worldwide. I don't deny that there is piracy. I don't deny that it's making companies lose money. However, they clearly are fudging the numbers to make it looks like a much bigger problem than it really is, and they don't even try to hide it. They count every piece of copied content (software, music, movies, etc) that anyone uses and simply assume that the person/company would have paid for it - and thus add it to the total amount they "lost". Of course, most of the people who get the content wouldn't have bought it if they had to pay the outrageous prices the industry charges. Thus, the industry really didn't lose that money at all. But, that doesn't matter when they're trying to make a big statement. And, of course, the press simply takes the number and states it as if it was a fact.
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  1. identicon
    Tony Townsend, 14 Feb 2003 @ 8:52am

    Lying About Level of Piracy

    Every tech company with something to sell does this - whether it's measuring the virus threat, amount of piracy, etc. If they can state in a public forum that there is A SERIOUS PROBLEM, then they justify their existence.

    Don't ask the barber if you need a haircut.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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