New Research Shows Movie And Game Piracy On The Rise, But Won't Tell Us How It Knows
from the is-it-really? dept
According to a recent report citing piracy statistics, game, film, tv, and software piracy are on the rise in the UK. The report cites an increase of roughly 20% over the last 5 years. Interestingly enough, it also shows a reduction in music piracy over the same period. This could certainly be bad news to those companies whose movies and games are part of the study, but sadly, there is no way to verify the information.What this report doesn't reveal is just how the researchers came to these conclusions. Unlike some recent objective research, this report is not transparent in any way. This lack of transparency is exactly what those Danish researchers want to change. However, not all research firms feel the same way. When a research firm such as Envisional, the author of this latest report, makes a living by providing statistics and other tools and information to content industries, it is their job to create research that adheres to what their employers want to hear. This is usually done by hiding their methodology in order to prevent the results from being debunked. After all, we have already seen what happens when honest researchers look at Envisional's data. Perhaps a closer look at the data is advised.
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Filed Under: piracy, studies
Companies: envisional
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Honestly, that might be worse news for the music industry than the gaming and music. Lack of increased piracy might mean lack of interest, at least in the music from the big name brands that care about piracy. Of course we don't have any way to confirm or refute my assertion because we don't know anything about the study other than the conclusions.
The cynic in me wants to say that the study doesn't show a growth in music piracy because the big labels didn't contribute enough to funding the study. But again, we don't know because of lack of transparency.
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Don't ask me how I came to such conclusions - my methodology is proprietary information.
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$$$
Who paid the results, er, I mean research?
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How do I know? That's a trade secret, trade secrets aren't open to scientific scrutiny.
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Boiling it down...
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'it also shows a reduction in music piracy over the same period'
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Re: 'it also shows a reduction in music piracy over the same period'
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Re: Boiling it down...
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Envisional
A quick look at Envisional's website shows that the company offers it's services to the entertainment industry 'tracking' online piracy.
It may be wild speculation but, could it be that Envisional's 'research' is designed to drum up business from content providers?
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Envisional
A quick look at Envisional's website shows that the company offers it's services to the entertainment industry 'tracking' online piracy.
It may be wild speculation but, could it be that Envisional's 'research' is designed to drum up business from content providers?
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I got my own research
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Re: Re: 'it also shows a reduction in music piracy over the same period'
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HARD DATA counter-example from "piracy" tag in your link.
http://www.develop-online.net/news/39163/Bohemia-Interactive-97-of-our-games-are-pirated
A rma developer: We'll never stop piracy but we want people to know it's not right
Indie PC studio Bohemia Interactive claims that 97 per cent of its games are not purchased legitimately.
“Our statistics from multiplayer show that for every three legitimate buyers playing their game in multiplayer, there are 100 attempts to play with a pirated version,” the Czech studio's CEO Marek Spanel said.
“This indicates that piracy is an extremely widespread problem on PC, and it’s also really worrying for us as a mid-sized, independent, PC-oriented developer.”
In an interview with PC Gamer, Spanel (pictured) said there was no way of detecting pirated copies if they are not connected online – suggesting that the 97 per cent piracy rate is in fact even worse.
Bohemia Interactive uses a unique anti-piracy technology called Degrade – a code hidden within pirated copies that gradually renders them unplayable.
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Note especially the last paragraph: the victims of piracy can innovate too, and that's a rather clever way.
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Re: HARD DATA counter-example from "piracy" tag in your link.
I think the anti-priacy measure is novel and has roots back to the NES. But the fact remains is that was time and money away from developing a better experience for paying customers.
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Re: HARD DATA counter-example from "piracy" tag in your link.
"Attempts"?
How many are successful?
THAT would be a better criteria of "pirating"?
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Re: Boiling it down...
I read all the time on Techdirt, "...link or it didn't happen..."
Well... Research, Data, and Methodology OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!
CBMHB
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Re: HARD DATA counter-example from "piracy" tag in your link.
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Re: HARD DATA counter-example from "piracy" tag in your link.
Both methodologies would lead to inflated numbers, but if it's just login attempts that number may be increased by a factor of 20 or more.
Either way, it is kind of a funny.
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Re: Re: Re: 'it also shows a reduction in music piracy over the same period'
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Re: Re: HARD DATA counter-example from "piracy" tag in your link.
Yeah, here it is:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110930/09182316149/gaming-company-sees-massive-user-revenue- growth-because-piracy.shtml
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Re: Re: Re: HARD DATA counter-example from "piracy" tag in your link.
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Re: HARD DATA counter-example from "piracy" tag in your link.
“Some of the symptoms are funny, usually annoying. In the Arma series, players with pirated copies have lower accuracy with automatic weapons in both single player and multiplayer, and occasionally turn into a bird with the words “good birds do not fly away from this game, you have only yourself to blame’,” he said."
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Ok, at least it's clear where he gets the 97% number from. He's counting the amount of people that can't hit the broad side of a barn. Unfortunately, that probably includes 97% of all people who play the Arma games, pirates or not.
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Waste of time
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