David Lynch Tries Crowdfunding His Next Movie

Is The Entertainment Industry Doing Itself Any Favors With Ridiculous Loss Claims?

from the doubtful dept

Wed, Jul 14th 2010 7:44pm — Mike Masnick

The entertainment industry is famous for its bogus stats, claiming massive losses from things like file sharing. However, when those reports are looked at by any credible source, it's not hard to realize they're totally bogus. This also comes up in various lawsuits. For example, a Russian torrent tracker was shut down, and the operators of the site are now being accused of causing $1.25 billion (with a b) in losses for the movie industry. This is substantiated by... well... absolutely nothing other than movie studios insisting that it's true. I'm curious as to why they do this, because when they put forth such unbelievable numbers, it seems like they're only hurting themselves. No one believes that such numbers are even close to true and it just makes it that much more difficult to take them seriously. Then again, maybe they're just using some Hollywood accounting to figure out those losses...

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Filed Under: copyright, losses, movies

20 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 7:51pm

It's those theatrical accounting practices from the MPAA.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 8:02pm

just imagine the inflation if all their theoretical money actually existed, gotta be in the trillions by now
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 8:26pm

More like quadrillions. Don't you know the interest rate you get when you are Hollywood?
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Hephaestus (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 8:35pm

I give them an A for effort but a B (ie Bull Sh!t "with a b") for their accounting and numbers. :)
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fogbugzd (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 8:51pm

The scary thing is that some of the execs actually believe the numbers.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 9:25pm

More like quadrillions. Don't you know the interest rate you get when you are Hollywood?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 9:42pm

I'm wondering which government will be the first to use the same BS to tax them, that would be priceless.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 9:43pm

Governments everywhere should look very closely to how they are calculating those losses and start using that to calculate taxes :)
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 10:07pm

are the "free is good" people doing themselves any good claiming piracy does no bad, and causes no losses?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 10:35pm

Re:
Copyright infringement does no bad, and causes no losses?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 10:46pm

Re:
A competing ice cream shop moving next to yours may cause losses to your shop but that doesn't mean competition is wrong.

No one owes you a monopoly on anything and so copyright infringement isn't morally wrong apart from the law.
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PaulT (profile), 15 Jul 2010 @ 12:00am

Re:
"piracy does no bad, and causes no losses"

Point out an article where Mike and/or regular commenters you regularly attack have actually said this, please. Otherwise, that strawman you keep attacking just keeps looking shabbier.

Piracy does cause losses, it just cannot be combated with lawsuits and doesn't cause anywhere near the losses the industry claims.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2010 @ 12:17am

Re: Re:
and in some instances it can actually be used to help sales if used correctly. Sometimes the effects are neutral. Sometimes the effects are bad (though not as bad as the RIAA et al make them out to be of course). Saying that sometimes they don't cause loss isn't the same as saying that they never cause loss. The point here is that since no one owes anyone a monopoly on anything any "loss" isn't a wrongful loss. It's no more a wrongful loss as is a competing ice cream shop moving next door to yours and competing. Competition may cause loss but it's not a wrongful loss.
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PaulT (profile), 15 Jul 2010 @ 12:59am

Re: Re: Re:
Yes, indeed. That's why the figures are so unrealistic - not only do they assume that every "pirate" would buy media at full retail price, they don't take into account positive effects of "piracy" either.

I'm sure there's still a net loss, but nothing that couldn't be recouped through clever business tactics instead of lawsuits.
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Michael, 15 Jul 2010 @ 5:08am

Re: Re: Re:
It is a little different than another ice cream shop opening next door. It's like a machine that can copy ice cream is invented and someone sits outside your shop copying your ice cream and giving it away.

Now, that may suck for you as an ice cream shop owner, but you cannot reasonably claim that everyone that takes the free ice cream would have bought yours. Especially once word of mouth spreads, lots of people that would normally not have bought ice cream would be showing up.

Will you lose ice cream profits? Yup. Did the price of your ice cream just drop to zero? Yes again. Is it valueless? Of course not. Can you come up with creative ways to utilize the popularity of your (now free) ice cream? I hope so, because if you do not, someone smarter will and you will be working at Wendy's lamenting the days when you didn't have to wear the stupid hat.

That's free enterprise. It seems completely unfair when you cannot figure out how to benefit from it.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2010 @ 5:44am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
its like an ice cream store opening next to your ice cream store, but instead of inventory, they just come over and just dip into your tubs when they need some stock. no big deal, they never take the full tub, and you have plenty so a little sharing never hurts.
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PRMan, 15 Jul 2010 @ 5:48am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Wrong. It's exactly like the first example. The entertainment industry never lost a molecule of physical product.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2010 @ 6:41am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh, you're back to making yourself look like a moron by comparing infringement to theft.

Good one, TAM.
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ChasW, 15 Jul 2010 @ 8:14am

Does this mean that if they shut down the site, they should be up $1.25 billion next year?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2010 @ 4:25pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Or any ice cream, for that matter.
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