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Anti-Piracy Enforcer Degban Publishes Some Info-less Graphics Stating Atlanta Is File Sharingest Place On Earth

from the lies,-damned-lies-and-whatever-the-hell-this-is dept

Wed, Apr 17th 2013 10:58am — Tim Cushing

Degban, the anti-piracy company that once took down comedian Dave Gorman's Flickr account because it thought photos of distinctive typography were actually its client's porn (and then blamed it on being hacked), has put together some very interesting (that's a colloquialism for "??!?") piracy numbers at its site.

Degban's "State of Piracy" page introduces itself with some rather ominous wording about piracy and the importance (and difficulty) of compiling accurate numbers.

When it comes to statistical data regarding content piracy, the complexity of the data and its abundance is utterly mind boggling. The data channels are scattered across geographical borders and scientific dimensions. The nature of the matter effects the data gathering process, resulting in datasets with chaotic orders and unclean results sets.

It is of grave importance, regardless of the challenge, to understand the trends and fashions behind content piracy as a thriving organism . Furthermore, appreciation of statical [sic] data regarding content piracy can be advantageous from a business intelligence point of view.

And some very fine "statical" data it is. The first chart posted is of the pie variety, breaking down the "market share" of several file storage lockers. Most of the contenders hover somewhere between 4-6% of the "market," possibly giving some credence to the MPAA's claims that Megaupload made the Internet go 'round by driving 99% of the traffic that wasn't Netflix (heavily paraphrased).

The data Degban has collected also shows the US firmly holding the lead in terms of "Origins of Pirate Peers." (USA! USA! USA!) How this number (185,290) is derived remains a mystery, but whatever it is, it's nearly nine times as much as Russia (28,001). So... who's doing all this piracy? Atlantans, apparently.

As can be seen by this chart, Atlanta is more than twice as piratey as Tacoma (?!?), the second place pirate haven, in terms of numbers lying along a Y-axis. Again, no further information is provided as to what these numbers represent, but we can certainly assume that Atlanta is the problem and Tacoma isn't helping. Once we venture beyond these two homegrown pirate bays, we see pirating is a major issue in such metropolises as Chalfont, PA and Iselin, NJ. Other cities/villages/unincorporated townships appear on the list as well, leading to questions of "Where is that, exactly?" and "Didn't that one guy used to live there... the serial killer/general store proprietor?" Cities with large populations -- New York and LA -- are pretty far down the list, which might make a lesser anti-piracy company question the quality of its data.

Degban really drives home the "Atlantans heart pirating" point with its next info-less graphic.

From this graphic portrayal of the United States battling a post-adolescent breakout of Venn diagram remnants, we can only draw one conclusion: if piracy is to be stopped, Atlanta has got to go. No more DMCA requests. No more lousy legislation. No more half-assed, self-serving infographics. You kill something by cutting off its head. The MPAA will be able to return millions of bag boys to their copyright-protected jobs just as soon as someone detaches Atlanta from the internet. And, from what I can tell of the map above, at that point, nearly all piracy will have gone away. If only Degban had made this clear earlier, we could have done away with all these lawsuits and focused in on the real piracy cancer: Atlanta.

Now, the numbers contributing to these SHOCKING bar graphs might possibly be found in this detailed, interactive (click over to Degban's site to experience this in all its glory) Google Map, which pinpoints where these "peers" are located, as well as the number of peers operating at each inverted teardrop.

Yes. There are some numbers in there, alright. Some low numbers. In fact, it's tough to find any location with more than 5 "peers." How these scattered points add up to over 10,000 pirating Atlantans is beyond me, especially considering Atlanta itself has no data point at all. None. Zip. Zero. Clearly, Degban processes data in a far advanced way, in which "0" peers means, "more than double the piracy impact of Tacoma, in which Tacoma is the number two piracy center."

You may also want to check out the dates on this map. It looks like the last data harvest was back in the spring of 2010. "OLD NEWS!!!" I hear you yell like a bunch of irate ~~Digg members~~ Redditors. But, how can that be? "Data is important," Degban tells us in the intro, along with this:

This section is regularly and automatically kept up to date.

From the looks of it, "regularly" means "once per decade." And "automatically" means "please delete this word from this sentence before publishing this page."

So, we have a bunch of numbers that don't add up, aren't current and do little more than randomly drop circles on maps and rub bars affectionately up against sky-high Y-axises. And yet, Degban is a well-known name in the piracy world, one that understands the "grave importance" of accurate and up-to-date statistics. To fight your enemy successfully, you must know them, and from what I'm seeing here, Degban is nearly 100% sure someone's pirating stuff somewhere.

Godspeed, number wranglers! Remind me to keep one hand on my content when passing through the muggy climes of Hotlanta or the suicidal murkiness of upstate Washington! And tell Vkontakte.ru that everyone's extremely disappointed in its lack of effort on the file sharing front.

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Filed Under: atlanta, data, file sharing, research
Companies: degban

39 Comments

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That One Guy (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 8:52am

Well as long as we're making up numbers...
I propose that the first chart be retitled 'Favorite color by city', with the second being, 'Pigeons per square foot', as the changed graphics would be as equally linked to the 'data' they provide, while making the images much more entertaining.
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Rikuo (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:05am

So...does this define a peer in terms of a file-sharer on a peer-to-peer network or is it some other unknown definition that they stupidly left out?
If so...what is it they're trying to say? That there are so few peers that the claims of a creative apocalypse are obviously overblown, or that there are so many but since the overall creative industry is still raking in record amounts of money, that we shouldn't be worried at all?
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out_of_the_blue, 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:13am

Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
I'll guess it's: "GO PIRATES!"

There is this interesting admission: "giving some credence to the MPAA's claims that Megaupload made the Internet go 'round by driving 99% of the traffic that wasn't Netflix". So at least YOU'RE beginning to use real numbers.

Now put the admission that Megaupload cut into "Hollywood" sales with common law as the basis of copyright, and your pro-pirate stance looks a lot like advocating theft.
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Spaceman Spiff (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:15am

There are lies, damned lies,
and then there are statistics!
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:17am

Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
Do you know what sarcasm is?
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:19am

Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
Well someone missed the highly obvious sarcasm.

Megaupload cutting into Hollywood sales is the basis of copywrite? What?

Also the theft/stealing claim has been...

ah screw it.
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dabockster, 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:20am

Tacoma, really?
Tacoma resident here. That guy can go fall in /dev/null. Granted, I know plenty of people who pirate. But I doubt it's THAT high.
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Rikuo (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:39am

Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
"Exciting reading, but I don't get your point."

I'll boil it down for you, since you've just (again) admitted how stupid you are.

THESE GRAPHICS MAKE NO SENSE!

The pie chart has a lot of percentages, but doesn't say what they are (Tim, are you sure it's market share? I don't see that anywhere in the pie chart graphic)
The bar chart is ridiculous. Is it seriously saying that in a country of about 350 million people, there's only 185,000 torrenters?
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Rikuo (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:41am

Re: Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
I also just checked the Google Maps thing for Ireland. Apparently only a total of 8 (EIGHT!) people in Ireland are peers, using peer-to-peer networks.
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Anonymouse, 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:44am

185k sharers in the US. I think piracy is solved.
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crade (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:44am

Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
The point would be that it sure looks like these guys don't know what they are doing and it would be nice to have some real info on the impact of piracy that wasn't a complete load of crap.
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RD, 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:48am

Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
SHUT

THE

FUCK

UP!!

So sick of your IMMEDIATELY jumping into EVERY fucking thread so you can exercise your "Gotta Get Mike!" muscle. Half the time you don't even post anything related to the topic, you just HAVE to be Mr. Attention Whore and scream "ME! ME! ME!" at every turn.

Start your own fucking blog if you want a more pro-copyright forum. Oh right, you cant, because a) no one would come to it except entrenched industry players and b) you've never succeeded at anything in your life, and would just fail at this too, so instead of trying to improve yourself or your skills, you wallow in self-hate and troll boards of those who actually DO something with their lives.
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RD, 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:49am

Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
Also, this:

"There is this interesting admission: "giving some credence to the MPAA's claims that Megaupload made the Internet go 'round by driving 99% of the traffic that wasn't Netflix". So at least YOU'RE beginning to use real numbers."

Was SARCASM, you stupid shit.
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crade (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:49am

Re:
No, no they are just at "piracy peer level" 185 000... It's completely different haha Piracy peer levels are based on some undefined value that they don't want to tell you.
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Another AC, 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:50am

Re: Tacoma, really?
I believe you fell into the trap there. No one said (not even the pretty meaningless graphs) that Tacoma has a high rate of piracy. All it says is that a randomly-assigned number given to Tacoma is a lot higher relative to other random numbers given to other cities and towns.
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Gwiz (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:51am

Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
.... with common law as the basis of copyright,...

You still haven't given us any basis for this out-of-left-field "common law copyright theory" of yours.

On the other hand, Karl has completely demolished this "theory" here.

You just keep on yapping and ankle-biting on every article, don't you? Even when you are dead-wrong. Amazing.
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crade (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:52am

Re: Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
Also, GO COMPETENT WORKERS and BUSINESSES!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:54am

Re: Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
I think the point goes beyond that.

The real point is that these are the kinds of companies that provide the "evidence" for copyright lawsuits and (indirectly) provide the data that forms the basis for copyright legislation.

As anyone can see, the data is full of holes, but this is the data that "they" will work with.

So, next time some idiot proposes legislation "because piracy", or some Prenda wannabe starts a lawsuit campaign against "pirates!", remember that this is the kind of data that they have.
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crade (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:56am

Re: Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
Soo.. whats your point? Is it.. "go piracy!", or is it "Streisand Effect Mike" or is it "Google is my Master"? hehehe
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Chosen Reject (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:58am

I'm rather enjoying the map.

Why do so many cities lie on the same latitude?

Why are there so many places in the ocean (real pirating pirates?)?

Why is Spokane in Idaho?

Why is it that pirates only pirate in small cities?
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sorrykb (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:01pm

But such pretty colors
Degban's website (hated to give it traffic) says it all.
Key links at the bottom of the page:

TOS -- Privacy -- Refund

I want a refund of my time spent staring at unlabeled y-axes.
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crade (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:03pm

Re: Re: Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
Yeah, thats what I meant by it would be nice to have some real info.. Not just to have real info, but to base our decisions on info that wasn't fake.. It would be nice.

Basing decisions on hard facts or logic instead of guestimates altogether would be even better than even real info about guestimates too, but that is just asking for way too much.
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Ruben, 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:06pm

Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
Blue, your brand of copyright maximalist satire is pure genius. It's almost as if you actually believe the tripe you spew.
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crade (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:07pm

Re: Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
lol, common law. I'm just picturing people who don't have legal copyright in place all just not humming the same tune they heard someone else hum because they know it's the right thing to do. There are unicorns in the background.
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Jikap (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:07pm

The Piracy activity of Atlanta is over 9000! :p
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crade (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:10pm

Re: Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
I certainly do not get the impression that he believes it. It's kinda far fetched.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:11pm

Re: Re:
You simpleton.

Piracy peer level is obviously calculated by taking the population of the city, dividing it by zero and then multiplying it by the square root of the area of the city multiplied by -1 plus a number you made up. Thusly:

PPL=(pop/0) * sqrt(area*-1) + made_up_number

Oh, and you obviously do these operations in R, because otherwise you wouldn't be "keeping it real".
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Ninja (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:15pm

Well, considering 68% of the statistics are born out of thin air I'd say 43% of the Congress like to sniff old cheese in the morning. Yep, these seem useful and reliable statistics.
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Lowestofthekeys (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:19pm

Re: Re: Re: Exciting reading, but I don't get your point.
"...but this is the data that "they" will work with."

This is the sad truth of how things are. Luckily, some people call these organizations on their bogus statistics as evidenced by one of the Ars Technica writers who examined some RIAA stats on musicians:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/have-we-lost-41-percent-of-our-musicians-de pends-on-how-you-the-riaa-count/
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Andrew Norton (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:23pm

Maybe he found me?
I'm in the Atlanta area, and do a lot of torrent work, since I'm torrentfreak's researcher. Oh, and working with some of the lawyers opposing Prenda.

Must be it, It's me, I'm the hotspot!
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2013 @ 12:56pm

"scientific dimensions"? "datasets with chaotic orders and unclean results sets"?
"the trends and fashions behind content piracy as a thriving organism"? e.o
omfgwtf
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sorrykb (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 1:02pm

Re:
But... Atlanta is 2.5 Camarillos! 2.5!!!! Soon, it could be 3. We have to act now before it's too late!!!
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Franklin G Ryzzo (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 1:09pm

Re:
Why do so many cities lie on the same latitude?

To make the smuggling routes between them more efficient.

Why are there so many places in the ocean (real pirating pirates?)?

Yes, really real piraty pirating pirates, like Pirate Mike Masnik!!!1!

Why is Spokane in Idaho

Shhhh... no ones supposed to know!

Why is it that pirates only pirate in small cities?

Duh... they're easier to sail in and out of withdrawing as much attention... I feel like you aren't paying attention around here anymore :P
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Franklin G Ryzzo (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 1:10pm

Re: Re:
*without drawing* derp
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2013 @ 1:47pm

the first map clearly shows that piracy is the work of people close to water. Maybe something to do with the salt water??
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Zeissmann (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 3:19pm

I guess those numbers are about the most pirating cities in the "completely insignificant" weight category.
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twilightfog, 17 Apr 2013 @ 5:42pm

Re: Well as long as we're making up numbers...
Well "wireless data communication" can also mean tying a message to a pigeon's leg. Perhaps their super advanced algorithms also took this type of "file sharing" into account?
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Tux (profile), 17 Apr 2013 @ 7:28pm

And once Atlanta is cut off from the internet, I can see that Dallas will be the problem next.
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Sacredjunk, 18 Apr 2013 @ 2:53am

Nice post as usual!

Though axises sounds wrong, isn't it axes?
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