How Bogus Counterfeiting Stats Become Fact

from the watch-the-process-at-work dept

We've seen in the past how easily bogus stats from a biased industry can suddenly become "fact" as the press uses the stats without questioning the assumptions or even noting the inherent bias in the numbers. Michael Geist is examining exactly how that has happened in Canada in the debate over what to do concerning counterfeit goods. Apparently, many pushing for stronger anti-counterfeiting legislation in Canada point to the RCMP's supposed claim that counterfeiting is costing Canada $30 billion. The problem is that the number the RCMP is using wasn't based on a careful study or anything -- it was based on some random claims they found online, that were actually numbers thrown around by lobbyists paid to pump up the supposed threat to (yes, you guessed it) push for stronger protective laws. Yet, because the RCMP used those numbers without bothering to explain that they just plucked them off the internet with no effort to research the actual situation, many are now assuming that the numbers are accurate. In the meantime, two separate recent studies by neutral parties have shown that the claims over losses from counterfeiting have been grossly exaggerated. Unfortunately, no one seems to have paid that much attention to either study... not when the RCMP is showing the cost as $30 billion.

Filed Under: bogus stats, canada, counterfeiting

Latest Bogus Stats On Music Piracy Losses

from the do-we-really-need-to-go-through-this-again? dept

It's getting rather tiresome to need to debunk the bogus stats that come out every few months about the impact of "piracy" on one of the various copyright industries -- alternating between music, movies and software. What's most frustrating is that the press continues to take these studies at face value, and never once questions the most basic (and ridiculous) assumptions used to create the numbers. Take, for example, this report on the supposed impact on the economy of music piracy, put together by The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI). It, like many of these reports, counts every pirated song as a loss (Update: turns out it doesn't count every copied song as a lost sale, but does make some random assumptions using a totally-pulled-out-of-the-air conversion factor), and never bothers to count back in the promotional impact of unauthorized music sharing, that helps get more attention for certain bands. Actual economic studies tend to show little, if any, impact in either direction to music sales. Yet, this report ignores all of that. Even worse, it wades into ridiculous territory by adding in the supposed "ripple effect," claiming that music piracy hurts the rest of the economy by killing 46,000 production-level jobs and nearly 25,000 retail jobs. Of course, the supposed experts at IPI don't seem to consider that ripple effects go in multiple directions. Those people may be working in other jobs that are more productive for the economy. Also, in effectively lowering the price of music, people then have more money to spend on other areas of the economy, some of which may be more worthwhile. This isn't to say that there might not be some net negatives to unauthorized music downloads -- but the study from IPI isn't worth taking seriously, and it would be nice if reporters started calling them out on this whenever they (and others) release these reports.

Filed Under: bogus stats, copyright, music, piracy
Companies: institute for policy innovation