Wanted: The Truck Driver Who Lost His Job Due To File Sharing

from the we're-waiting... dept

Fri, Mar 23rd 2012 9:39am — Mike Masnick

Capitol File Magazine has a bit of a puff piece on the MPAA's Chris Dodd one year into his job at the lobbying organization (a job he took just months after promising he'd never work as a lobbyist). The piece isn't really that enlightening, other than an admission from Dodd that he didn't know anything about the movie business before he took the job. He probably should admit that he still knows nothing about the internet either, which is a pretty bad place to be if part of your job is trying to guide the movie industry into the future. In fact, the writeup notes that Dodd's one skill is his ability to push legislation through -- and then doesn't mention how he completely flopped on that front with SOPA/PIPA.

However, what the article does do is highlight Dodd's new talking points about how he's really protecting blue collar jobs, not Hollywood studio execs and movie stars:

“The first year has been a little chaotic,” says Dodd. “There’s been a steep learning curve. I bought into the notion that this was a redcarpet, Oscar-night kind of business. Over 2.2 million Americans are employed by the industry. Most of them are in blue-collar jobs, involving the people who drive the trucks and set up the lights. I didn’t know that when I started.”

It’s not just the names on the marquee, but the rank-and-file workers who are impacted by intellectual property infringements, says Dodd. “People think nothing of stealing from Charlie Sheen,” he explains, “but they might care if they realized they were stealing from someone who drives a truck.”

Yup. It's all about the truck drivers. Of course, the 2.2 million number is wrong. The Congressional Research Service says that number is less than 400,000. And, when we dug into the actual numbers, it shows that jobs in actual movie making are on the increase. The only real decrease seen in movie jobs has been in the number of people employed by theaters. But that's got nothing to do with piracy at all, since theater revenue has been going up and up and up (with a slight dip just last year). The job losses there have been about consolidation in theaters and the rise of giant multiplexes that employ very few humans.

That said, since Dodd mentions that poor, poor truck driver twice, I'm curious of a couple things. Which truck drivers get a cut of movie royalties? I'd like to know. Second, can anyone find me the truck driver who lost his job because of file sharing? I'd like to find that guy.

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Filed Under: blue collar workers, chris dodd, movies, sopa
Companies: mpaa

73 Comments

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Donnicton, 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:45am

You gotta understand that if he's using the same mathematics to conclude that 400,000 = 2,200,000 that the MPAA uses to calculate their "losses" due to piracy, it's actually very accurate within the bounds of that logic.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:46am

Tele-Dodd?
I wonder if Dodd is the same type of a-hole who excels in telemarketing?

Most people; being somewhat rational and empathic; cannot do well in telemarketing, but other sociopathic bastards absolutely excel at slyly manipulating people into doing things they know they'd be better off not doing...
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:47am

Which trucker?
Which trucker has lost his job due to piracy?

Karl Trucker: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2115319/

He hasn't been able to write anything new since 1938 due to piracy (and VCR's, talkies, air conditioners in the home, TV, etc).
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:47am

Wait, isn't the internet like a big truck? Or not? I can't remember.
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Titania Bonham-Smythe (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:47am

Exactly
which random number generator do the MPAA get their figures from?
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crade (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:48am

I'm sure we could find some truck drivers who would be willing to claim they lost their job to file sharing, on TV even, for the right price!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:50am

I'm sure we can trick MPAA execs into contradicting themselves on TV with very little effort. They tell a bunch of inconsistent lies.
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crade (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:52am

Re: Tele-Dodd?
Telemarketting survives on actually conning old people with dementia, Dodd survives on pretending he's conned people and paying someone to pretend believe it to pass laws for him.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:53am

Re: Tele-Dodd?
No the MPAA suck at that too. No one is buying their "woe is me", sales pitch. Except of course law makers that they pay to buy it.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:54am

Re:
No damn it! It isn't a big truck. It's a series of tubes!
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Melissa Ruhl (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 9:54am

Nice try, Mr. Dodds.
Of course it's actually the opposite from what Dodds is claiming. The creative flourish that Internet echoing encourages has actually given so many more people a chance at realizing their film creation dreams than the distant, elite Hollywood ever did.
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:00am

Re: Re:
No! No! The dump truck pours all the email into the tubes!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:02am

But what about the poor truck driver who used to get paid to transport illegal bootlegs? Does no one think of them when they enforce their laws?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:05am

I would be surprised if the MPAA studios actually employed truckers. That would be a classic contracted-out job.
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JustSayin', 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:08am

It's actually worse...
piracy kills truck drivers...

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article31793.ece

"Investigators sent the laptop to the Western New York Regional Computer Forensic Lab for testing to see if the computer was running at the time of the crash.

State police say Wallace was streaming adult pornographic movies while operating his truck."
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:12am

Re:
@ #1

it's all about Hollywood accounting and how you use (or abuse) it
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:15am

Dodd's Response...
"Which truck drivers get a cut of movie royalties?"

Dodd: "When I said that piracy was stealing from the truck drivers I meant was the truck drivers actually OWN everything so they tell us what to do. So you can blame them for everything. It was their idea. (Jimmy Hoffa isn't dead. He's still calling all the shots.) Just like the military. We were just following orders."
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:15am

Re:
Indeed... and also, technology has caused millions of people to lose jobs, so we should outlaw that as well.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:18am

Re: Re: Tele-Dodd?
Come to think of it... aren't pretty much all of the Capitol Hill critters of geriatric age?
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Lowestofthekeys, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:19am

When confronted with claims of their dishonest use of statistics, Hollywood will hire Nicolas Cage to "math" a way out for them.

I mean, whatever faulty logic they use in their movies will definitely work in reality, right?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:20am

Re: Re: Re:
Ah I see. And I thought it was the little pidgeon that lives in the back of my computer that flies carries the message away.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:21am

Re:
No they hired the former accountants from Arthur Andersen for that.
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Chris Brand, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:21am

Not necessarily a whole truck driver
if 400,000 jobs get "rounded up to over 2 million, we could be looking for less than a fifth of a truck driver.
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Grant, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:23am

I'd like to see anybody who has lost their job due to piracy.

unless you count the people who can't get a good job because they had to drop out of school to pay for a settlement when the RIAA and MPAA sued them.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:23am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I have a little devil to handle my email (it hasn't grown to be a full daemon yet).
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Richard (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:31am

Re: Exactly
Ranlux - they can afford "luxury random numbers"
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:37am

Since you are limiting your retorts to ONLY employees that are directly employeed by the movie industry. From this point forward any time you mention the tech industry you are ONLY allowed to count the people who are DIRECTLY employed by technology companies - no third parties.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:39am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Groan! That was awful.
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Suja (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:43am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I have an army of Pixies for that.

For my other needs, such as cleaning up messy drives, I have an army of Smurfs and Gnomes, the Cinderella clean-up music plays everytime they do their job.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:44am

Re: It's actually worse...
State police say Wallace was streaming adult pornographic movies while operating his truck."

That is quite an opinion they formed from the autopsy. I hope that when I die and an autopsy is performed, they at least refer to my crotch as a good sized SUV.
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blaktron (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:50am

Re:
OK. Seeing as there are MANY more tech companies than movie studios and recording companies, each of them employing a geometrically higher number of workers, I would say thats a fair estimate. I know in most countries, high tech outnumbers entertainment more than 10 to 1 (mostly because the US has a near monopoly on world-wide entertainment products).

Although the Entertainment industry does employ a sizeable number of lobbyists, which might be the data you're looking at.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:54am

Re:
I wonder if they included the politicians they pay in the total numbers of industry employees.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:57am

Re:
That's fine. The "tech industry" generally doesn't have an habit of making wacky assumptions about how many people they employ. Or pulling numbers out of their ass.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:57am

Re: Re:
and maybe after November they will be able to claim that even more of these "employee's" lost their jobs "due to piracy".
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Ninja (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 11:11am

Re:
You know, Google is your friend. No, it doesn't fatherly employ ppl but you can search for these figures using it.
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Nigel (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 11:16am

Chris Dodd =
Peter Principle anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

We have already covered liar..

Nigel
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John Fenderson (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 11:17am

Re:
From this point forward any time you mention the tech industry you are ONLY allowed to count the people who are DIRECTLY employed by technology companies - no third parties.

Deal! Since those are the numbers that numbers that we've always used for the tech industry, we don't have to change a thing. The tech industry is far less deceptive, and far larger, than the movie industry.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 11:18am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Underpants Gnomes are what I use to for the cleanup.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 11:23am

Re: Re:
No, it's like a station wagon full of floppies hurtling down the highway.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 11:27am

Re:
"Gas, grass, ass or intellectual property, nobody rides for free." ;-)
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Rikuo (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 11:41am

Re:
Not very hard. As the article points out, Chriss Dodd. All he has to do is enter the room and sit at the seat labelled "MPAA Lobbyist". And then have a TV come up behind him showing his promise NOT to be a lobbyist.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 11:55am

LOL What a joke I drove a semi for 2 years and there is always need for more. The trucking industry has a hard enough time keeping the amount of people they need due to the high turnover rate.

I've not drove in a few years and I still get mail from many companies that I never even knew they had my info lol.. If they're in such short supply from "piracy" why are companies like jbh and others still growing.

Dodd is a fucking retard and his only interest is lining his pockets with green.

The only issue I've seen with trucking is logs and ridiculous fines for a job that demands much more. My avg day was 18-20 hours a good 30-45 days at a time. The worst thing for me was worrying about getting caught driving over my hours and not losing my job due to piracy rofl..

I mean seriously! psychological terrorism should be dealt with just as harsh as a suicide bomber getting busted. You can't just start making up moronic claims in the hopes you will scare people into doing your bidding.

In closing: I wish that dirt bag would have a heart attack so I can watch them make fun of his death on South Park.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 12:12pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Cinderella clean-up music plays everytime they do their job." hope you are licensed
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 12:15pm

Re:
Foxconn alone employs 2 million people.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 12:15pm

Re: It's actually worse...
Who pirates adult movies? I'm pretty sure free streaming porn sites are why we ran out of IP addresses.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 12:16pm

Re:
From this point forward any time you mention the tech industry you are ONLY allowed to count the people who are DIRECTLY employed by technology companies - no third parties.

You do realize that every time someone talks about employment in the tech industry that this is exactly what they do.

Or do you seriously think that the tech industry needs to inflate its numbers the way Hollywood does?
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DCL, 23 Mar 2012 @ 12:18pm

So why did he sigh up??!?!
"...I bought into the notion that this was a redcarpet, Oscar-night kind of business..."

so what he is saying is he got into the position he claimed he would not do because he wanted the opulence and high life but then found out it was about truck drivers?

And he want's me to get on his bandwagon because he suddenly realized there are real people working in that industry other then Movie stars and producers? Not to mention he lies about how they are losing jobs that they really are not losing.

Consider me in the "still unimpressed with Dodd" camp and the "this guy is part of the problem with our society" camp.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 12:18pm

Re:
In closing: I wish that dirt bag would have a heart attack so I can watch them make fun of his death on South Park.

I'm going to hell for laughing at this.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 12:30pm

Re: Exactly
That would be from the "Out-Of-Our-Asses" Generator.

I hear the OOOA Generator is also very popular with Tea Partyers.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 12:43pm

Looking at this all wrong
Dodd, when asked about the 'truck drivers' in his statement, had this to say:

Dodd: "No, no. You completely misunderstood me. I didn't mean semi-truck drivers, I meant guys who work for us that drive trucks to work. You know, like Chevys and Fords"

Turns to his assistant

Dodd: "We have someone like that, right? No? Well, go buy someone a truck, have them drive it to work so I can fire them."

Turns back to the reporter

Dodd: "See! Honest, blue-collar, truck-driving citizens are being impacted by PIRACY!!!!!!"
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 2:20pm

Re: Re:
Are you kidding? Apple claimed to create over half a million jobs just a few weeks ago. Nevermind that only 30,000 people are actually on the payrolls...
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 2:31pm

Re: Looking at this all wrong
Help Wanted

Larry the Cable guy type for temporary PR position. Must own a truck and have shirt with blue colar. No experience necessary.
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blaktron (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 2:59pm

Re: Re: Re:
Apple claimed there are 500 000 iOS developers in the US. Thats actually true.

And I think Apple lies more than most, just not about that.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 3:22pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Bam! And that's why I love this site. The trolls do their best to misinform and someone like blaktron comes along and puts them in their place using actual facts and verifiable info.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 4:37pm

Theoretically, as 3D printers become cheaper and more precise, won't every trucker eventually lose their job to file sharing?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 4:42pm

Re: Re: Looking at this all wrong
"News at 11: 'Joe the Trucker' complains that the Democratic Party's Net Neutrality stance will cripple small businesses"
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Austin (profile), 23 Mar 2012 @ 5:33pm

His name is Steve
He is a 49 year old truck driver and a friend of mine. He has a 17 year old daughter, who is a fan of Justin Beiber. After LEGALLY purchasing a song by Beiber on iTunes, she discovered that some fat cat studio executive had determined that she should not be able to convert the song she just LEGALLY PURCHASED into a ringtone for her phone. As a result, she then pirated a copy of the SAME SONG SHE JUST BOUGHT so that she could make it into a ringtone, and after doing so, deleted the pirated song.

Unfortunately, she did all of this on a company laptop that belonged to the trucking company Steve was working for at the time. They got an ISP letter about the pirated song, and Steve got fired. Fortunately, he now hauls race cars making almost 19 times as much PER MILE as his previous job and now has 2 computers of his own, including one for his daughter.

So yes, piracy has cost a truck driver his job. Is this what the MPAA intended? Obviously not. But eh, you weren't very specific Mike. What did I win?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 7:20pm

Re:
It's just a creative use of imaginary numbers.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 7:21pm

Re: Re: Re:
The dump truck is where my e-mail trash bin goes.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 7:22pm

Re: Exactly
It would probably make a good password generator too.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 8:00pm

I think Chris Dodd should have gone for the corn farmer angle, it would have been far more hilarious.

"People don't realise that when they steal from Hollywood they steal from us honest corn farmers. When Hollywood refused to pay me with their increased revenue saying that they were ravaged by piracy I ended up with a surplus of corn that no one could use because it would have been used to make popcorn for theaters. There were no possible alternatives: cornflakes, cornmeal, or people who wanted to pop their own corn; my life was well and truly fucked by piracy."
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 8:39pm

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 23rd, 2012 @ 8:00pm
That story just brought a tear to my eye.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2012 @ 10:37pm

Re:
Nope it could create more demand for their services as anybody anywhere becomes a manufacturer and will need some way to transfer the physical products.

Everybody has an oven in their house it didn't mean the end of restaurants and the reason is simple, people don't like to produce things most just like to pay someone to do it for them, that is the same reason gardeners have a job, that is the same reason fashion people have a job.
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Igor Petrovic, 24 Mar 2012 @ 3:51am

Truck drivers problems
What can You say on that rubbish?HAHAHHAH-JC-HA-HA,UAAAAA!!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Mar 2012 @ 8:44am

Mike, while I appreciate the sentiment of the article, I think you need to understand how complicated the process would be.

Let's say that your record label sends new discs each week to stores via UPS, which is actually a pretty common way to do things. If they send a certain number less boxes to a give area, maybe a route is changed or a driver loses their job. They wouldn't know that it is become of the music industry losing jobs, just that there aren't as many deliveries in the area.

Let's say that a DVD plant in the past turned out 500 boxes of DVDs a week. If sales drop and they only ship 250 boxes a week, maybe they only ship now once every two weeks, so one less pickup. That single pickup may not cost a driver specifically his job, but other things are at play. Less deliveries to the plant of paper, printing, Amaray boxes, etc. So now your delivery of DVDs not only causes one less shipment out, but maybe 2 or 3 less shipments in.

With enough less shipping in the area, perhaps the driver is re-assigned, perhaps a new driver isn't hired (because business is declining in the area), etc.

It's not as if UPS works solely for the DVD business, you know?
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Mar 2012 @ 9:54am

Re:
Actually, what has happened is that as the malls get gutted out by online sales, there is more and more need for trucks to deliver individual items to people.

The rest of your description of the trucking business is pretty accurate. When you are dealing with so much high volume, low profit activity, there is great pressure for drivers to go faster, to work too long, to fake logs, take drugs, and stay awake way too long, putting the public at risk to try to make these cheap sale places bottom lines work out.

Something has to give - the public is unwilling to pay what products should cost, they are unwilling to pay the price for american workers to make the products, and the result is a massive trade deficit and really tired long haul truck drivers bringing containers of stuff to companies to drop ship to online store's customers.
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Karl (profile), 24 Mar 2012 @ 9:55am

Re:
Let's say that your record label sends new discs each week to stores via UPS

And why is this caused by piracy, rather than iTunes?

Also, your examples don't hold up, because you're assuming that money that would have gone to CD's and DVD's is not going anywhere else. This is false assumption.

The Tower Records where I used to work is now a Best Buy. Do you think any less boxes are shipped because of it?
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Mar 2012 @ 4:10am

Re: Re:
"Also, your examples don't hold up, because you're assuming that money that would have gone to CD's and DVD's is not going anywhere else. This is false assumption."

Basic math, since the increases in online sales are nowhere near what has been lost elsewhere (remember, music sales are odd about 60% in a decade), I am assuming that Itunes isn't filling the gap, nor is the money "going elsewhere" that is useful to content production. If you don't buy a DVD and pirate it instead, and buy a case of beer... you haven't helped the movie industry, have you?

"The Tower Records where I used to work is now a Best Buy. Do you think any less boxes are shipped because of it?"

I think there are less boxes of CDs and DVDs shipped. Any other increase to this Best Buy in boxes for, say, TVs would likely be offset by a decline to other retailers in the area.
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Niall (profile), 26 Mar 2012 @ 2:09am

Re: Re: Re:
What they'll do is pretend that each politician counts for every 'voter' in his constituency, so when they lose their seats, the 'entertainment industry' 'loses' not only the politician but all his voters too as 'job losses'.
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Niall (profile), 26 Mar 2012 @ 2:19am

Re: Re: Looking at this all wrong
Would Mater do?
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Niall (profile), 26 Mar 2012 @ 2:22am

Re: Re: Re:
But money not spent on CDs will be spent on something, and that something will often need boxes shipped. Sometimes, those boxes will be bigger, needing more trucking.

Seriously, if someone decides not to spend $500 on CDs but buys a plasma TV, which one takes up more box space?
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Karl (profile), 26 Mar 2012 @ 10:12pm

Re: Re: Re:
Apologies for the late reply, if you care.

I am assuming that Itunes isn't filling the gap

If you're pushing "hit singles," it's no surprise that consumers would rather pay a la carte for a single song, rather than pony up $18 for a full-length CD just to get a single track. It's why labels deliberately tried to kill singles.

But that's completely immaterial. Even if people spent billions of dollars more on iTunes than they ever did on CD's, that truck driver would still lose his job, under your theory, because you don't need truck drivers to distribute MP3's.

nor is the money "going elsewhere" that is useful to content production.

First, I never said it needed to be "going elsewhere" that is useful for content production. Just that it was "going elsewhere" that also hired truckers.

Second, you're wrong. That money is being spent elsewhere in the music industry. That's why the overall music industry has been growing, more than offsetting the losses of the recording industry. (And those portions of the music industry, unlike the recording industry nowadays, do need truck drivers - to haul equipment, ship merch, etc.)

I think there are less boxes of CDs and DVDs shipped.

Who cares if they're CD's or DVD's? As long as something is in a box that needs to be shipped, the truck driver will keep his job.

Any other increase to this Best Buy in boxes for, say, TVs would likely be offset by a decline to other retailers in the area.

That makes absolutely no sense at all. When Tower was around, the amount of cargo shipped to Best Buy was zero (since it wasn't even there). Now they're shipping more cargo to Best Buy than they did to Tower. How does that equate to a truck driver losing his job?

I know a common criticism is that "big box" retailers often take away business from smaller competitors, because the smaller retailers can be undersold on the price. That doesn't mean that fewer TV's would be shipped, just that they would be shipped to Best Buy instead of Jeff and Akbar's TV Hut. In fact, since the prices are cheaper, more buy TV's, resulting in more TV's being shipped to that area.

Incidentally, if you think Best Buy isn't good for the economy, then it's the record labels that shoulder part of the burden for that - since they deliberately stopped dealing with record stores, in order to focus on just such "big box" retailers as Best Buy.

And absolutely none of that has a single thing to do with piracy.

So, I'm afraid you haven't given even a theoretical reason why a single truck driver would lose his job to piracy. Much less shown that it's actually happening... which it isn't.
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