Boy Scout Magazine Says Don't Listen To Legally Burned CDs, As They're Too Similar To Piracy

from the apparently,-someone-failed-their-legal-merit-badge dept

Four years ago, the MPAA worked with the local Los Angeles chapter of the Boy Scouts of America to create a special "activity patch" for Boy Scouts to repeat propaganda about how evil file sharing is. For some reason, that story got renewed attention earlier this year, when a few sources came across the 2006 story without checking the date on it. While there's really nothing new on that story, it does appear that the Boy Scouts are making some absolutely ridiculous suggestions to parents about how to talk to your kids about copyright issues.

That link is to an article in the latest issue of Scouting Magazine, supposedly about the "ethics" of file sharing, and how parents should talk to their children about it. And, yet, it's entirely one-sided, quoting the RIAA's claims about "losses," but oddly leaving out the stacks upon stacks upon stacks upon stacks of research showing that musicians are making more money these days, via alternative business models. You would think that would be a relevant part of the discussion... but it's totally absent. Someone, apparently, failed their "research the facts" merit badge.

But where the article goes totally off the rails is in telling parents that their children are too stupid to understand the nuances of copyright law, and because of that, they should take an extreme position: one so extreme that they shouldn't even listen to legally burned CDs:

So how can Scouters teach ethical behavior related to music downloading? One way: Set a good example. When you haul around Scouts in your car, for example, only play CDs that you've purchased. If you play CDs that you've burned--even if they're legal--your Scouts may not recognize the difference between those and the pirated CDs friends have given them.

The article also tries to blame musicians who embrace alternative business models for making the situation more confusing:

Part of the problem, [Dr. Tony] Aretz says, lies in the Internet's free-for-all nature, where users get all sorts of content free--even information from newspapers that they would have to pay for in the real world. Bands like Radiohead have further complicated the situation by giving their music away or offering it on a "pay what you want" basis.

Note to Aretz and Scouting magazine: the internet is the real world too. And bands like Radiohead haven't "further complicated the situation." They've helped make it clear that there are smart business models that can be embraced while not turning your fans into criminals. It would seem like that's a rather important lesson one should teach Boy Scouts.

Filed Under: boy scouts, ethics, piracy

LA Times' Propaganda Piece Claims Piracy Hurts Filmmakers Without Any Actual Evidence

from the oh-come-on dept

Reader jjmsan was the first of a few of you to send over this silly piece in the LA Times claiming that independent filmmakers are being hurt by unauthorized file sharing, but it's completely devoid of any actual evidence. It kicks off with the story of one indie film director who released a movie and insists that he's been harmed. But what's the evidence? Well, a lot of people have downloaded his film. Ok. So? When other movie makers saw that, they put in place smart business models to encourage people to buy something, and they did quite well because of it. By embracing file sharing and combining it with smart business models, tons of filmmakers who never would have been able to do anything with their film have now been able to build an audience and make a living.

The filmmaker in the story, Greg Carter, doesn't seem to have done any of that. He appears to have just complained about people who wanted to see his movie, rather than giving them something to buy. And while he insists that he's "lost $100,000 in revenue," he never seems to recognize that there was a good chance a lot fewer people would have cared to watch his film in the first place if it weren't for file sharing. The fact is that he failed to put in place a business model that embraced how people wanted to view the film. It's not "piracy" that's to blame, it's Greg Carter not putting in place a smart business model like a bunch of other filmmakers have done.

The article also highlights a filmmaker, Ellen Seidler, who complains about spending hours a day sending emails to file sharing sites, demanding they take down her film. Just think how much better she could be doing if she spent that same time connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy.

What a waste of space by the LA Times, who shouldn't be misleading people like this with bogus articles. It's articles that portray these people as victims, due to their own lack of business initiative, that does real harm to filmmakers. If, instead, the LA Times focused on smart filmmakers who are in the same situation as Carter and Seidler, but instead embraced it and are making real money because of it, they'd be helping. Instead, they're just making more of a mess.

Filed Under: business models, films, hollywood, indie filmmakers, piracy

BSA Again Lies With Stats; IDC Should Be Ashamed To Put Its Name On Pure Nonsense

from the not-again dept

For nearly a decade now, research firm IDC has done research for the Business Software Association (BSA), which BSA has long used to purposely mislead the press and politicians. Back in 2004, at least, the research at IDC was willing to admit that the BSA was being purposely misleading with its report, and yet it's continued to do the research and stand by it year in, year out -- despite the continued efforts to use the stats to flat out lie. As far as I'm concerned, this makes all IDC research totally suspect. Until IDC steps up and admits that the research it has put together does not say what the BSA claims it does, IDC has to be considered a joke.

This year's study, of course, was no different than in past years, so we'll point you once again to the explanation we put together in 2008 of how the BSA blatantly misleads with statistics.

Beyond the basic report, though, the BSA likes to dribble out other ridiculous claims based on the same report from May. The latest, is the blatantly false and simply laughable claim that "reducing software piracy would inject $142 billion into the global economy and create nearly 500,000 new jobs. This is wrong. Not only is it wrong, it's been widely debunked a variety of times. There are two key (but related) problems. The first, is that IDC/BSA count "ripple effects," which they don't seem to realize mean double, triple or quadruple counting the same dollars. But, more importantly, they only count those "ripple effects" in one direction. That is, they look at how they believe software companies would make more money (and then hire more people and pay more taxes) if there was less software piracy, but they don't even pretend to cover how paying for such software would mean tons of others would employ fewer people and pay less in taxes.

And, if you dig into the details, as Glyn Moody recently did (amusingly, after having to dig through many, many different reports to finally discover IDC's questionable methodology), you realize that reducing software piracy actually would probably do more harm than good for jobs and tax revenue in many areas:

One thing that is always omitted in these analyses is the fact that the money *not* paid for software licenses does not disappear, but is almost certainly spent elsewhere in the economy (I doubt whether people are banking all these "savings" that they are not even aware of.) As a result, it too creates jobs, local revenues and taxes.

Put another way, if people had to pay for their unlicensed copies of software, they would need to find the money by reducing their expenditure in other sectors. So in looking at the possible benefit of moving people to licensed copies of software, it is also necessary to take into account the *losses* that would accrue by eliminating these other economic inputs.

One important factor is that proprietary software is mainly produced by US companies. So moving to licensed software will tend to move profits and jobs *out* of local, non-US economies. Taxes may be paid on that licensed software, but remember that Microsoft, for example, minimises its tax bill in most European countries by locating its EU headquarters in Ireland, which has a particularly low corporate tax rate....

So in addition to causing money to be taken out of the country (and hence the local economy), licensed software would probably also bring in far less tax than money previously spent on local goods and services, which would generally pay the full local taxes.

Another factor that would tend to exacerbate these problems is that software has generally had a higher profit margin than most other kinds of goods: this means any switching from buying non-software goods locally to buying licensed copies of software would reduce the amount represented by costs (because the price is fixed and profits are now higher). So even if these were mostly incurred locally, switching from unlicensed to licensed copies would still represent a net loss for the local economy.

Similarly, it is probably the case that those working in the IT industry earn more than those in other sectors of the economy, and so switching a given amount of money from industries with lower pay to IT, with its higher wages, would again *reduce* the overall number of jobs, not increase them, as the report claims.

Of course, a bunch of folks have been pointing out these kinds of problems with IDC's research methods and with the BSA's claims about them for the better part of a decade. At what point do people start actually holding IDC and the BSA accountable for blatantly lying with stats?

Filed Under: jobs, piracy, software, stats
Companies: bsa, idc

Indie Game Developer Points Out That It's Better To Give People Reasons To Buy Than Worry About 'Piracy'

from the figuring-things-out dept

Jay was the first of a whole bunch of you to submit the blog post by indie game developer Markus Persson that's been making the rounds, where he talks about why it's better to give people a reason to buy than to worry about "piracy":

Instead of just relying on guilt tripping pirates into buying, or wasting time and money trying to stop them, I can offer online-only services that actually add to the game experience. Online level saving, centralized skins, friends lists and secure name verification for multiplayer. None of these features can be accessed by people with pirated versions of the game, and hopefully they can be features that turn pirates from thieves into potential customers.

He also notes that the impact of unauthorized copies is somewhat ambiguous:

If someone pirates Minecraft instead of buying it, it means I've lost some "potential" revenue. Not actual revenue, as I can never go into debt by people pirating the game too much, but I might've made even more if that person had bought the game instead. But what if that person likes that game, talks about it to his or her friends, and then I manage to convince three of them to buy the game? I'd make three actual sales instead of blocking out the potentially missed sale of the original person which never cost me any money in the first case.

In the end, he makes the same point we've tried to make here for years: worrying about and fighting unauthorized copies just doesn't seem to be nearly as productive an approach as focusing on ways to actually give people reasons to buy. He doesn't support "piracy," but suggests that it's happening, and there are much better ways of dealing with it than fighting it. Nice to see more people recognizing this key point.

Filed Under: games, markus persson, piracy, reasons to buy

Raids Across Europe Targeting File Sharing Sites

from the mole-wacking dept

Well, here we go again. Despite a near total lack of these kinds of activities helping anyone, apparently there's just been a European-wide set of raids on various file sharing operations. It's happening in at least 14 countries, with police showing up at various hosting firms, and trying to take down various private groups.

I'm sure we'll hear the entertainment industry and/or law enforcement make some silly claim about how this represents a "significant blow" against file sharing. But, of course, the people saying that are the only people who actually believe it. Most people involved in file sharing via these sites will just move on somewhere else.

Filed Under: europe, file sharing, piracy, raids

Colbert Helps Save World From Polka Pirates

from the those-darn-pirates dept

A few of you have sent in the fact that the Colbert Report recently did a fun segment about a guy arrested for selling polka DVDs:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nailed 'Em - Polka Piracy
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

For all the talk we hear about how DVD counterfeiters are connected to "organized crime" and "terrorists," a lot of the times it's really situations like this one, involving a guy who did a public access TV show about polka. Someone called him to see if they could buy some DVDs of the show, so he made a few DVDs and sold them. But the whole thing was a setup, and the next morning he was arrested. The whole thing shows what a joke some of these claims really are.

Separately, I do find it amusing to see folks like Colbert mock the overreaction to things like copyright infringement -- considering that his employer, Viacom, is so aggressive on spreading the myth that DVD counterfeiting is really about supporting terrorism and organized crime.

Update: Good discussion in the comments about what the specific charges were in this case. Apparently, the guy used government equipment to make the recording and DVDs, so the local government felt it was theirs -- and they sold their own DVDs, which this guy's DVDs undercut. He was charged with using city property for "personal gain." Oddly, there's an "embezzlement" charge as a part of this... More details here.

Filed Under: colbert, counterfeit, dvds, piracy, polka

US International Trade Commission Learns That 'Piracy' Claims From Industry Are Bunk

from the good-for-them dept

Could it be that folks in the federal government are finally starting to get the message that all of those "piracy" stats out there are complete bunk? Following up on the recent excellent GAO report noting that industry claims about "losses" from piracy were absolute fiction (the latest, by the way, in a very long line of smart GAO reports on topics of interest to those around here), apparently the US International Trade Commission held hearings where it heard from a bunch of folks explaining how inaccurate industry reports on "losses from piracy" are -- and furthermore, based on little actual evidence and don't take into account the additional benefits.

It's so rare to see the government ever actually paying attention to those who don't toe the "piracy is absolutely purely evil and destroying everything" line, that this alone is pretty impressive. Whether or not it actually gets through or leads to policy changes is another story altogether. But it's good that more voices are being heard.

Filed Under: piracy, politics, us international trade commission
Companies: itc

Debunking The Ridiculous Claims That Unauthorized Copies Of Handheld Games Has 'Cost' The Economy $41.6 Billion

from the reality-check dept

A bunch of folks have sent in the ridiculous claims from a study done by the Japanese Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association (CESA) suggesting that unauthorized copies of handheld games have cost the industry $41.5 billion over a five year period. Like similar bogus reports, these numbers have little, if any, connection to reality. I was considering skipping posting about it altogether, given that it's really just the same old thing, but Dark Helmet sent in a nice starter list on why this study is completely bogus:

1. Every infringing download is counted as a lost sale
2. CESA took the numbers for Japanese handheld game piracy and multiplied it by four to get the worldwide numbers, because CESA "believes" Japan represents 1/4 of the market
3. Deviations in piracy levels in different world regions were not taken into account
4. Pricing for games per unauthorized copies were ALL based on the initial release price, not taking into account pricing fluctuations of games over time

In addition, I'd point out that the study apparently picked which sites to cover somewhat at random and may not accurately portray (in any way) the number of downloads. Also, there's no attempt to look at whether or not those who get unauthorized copies of some games end up buying other games as well (i.e., do they still spend the same amount otherwise -- just on different offerings?). Basically, there's very little in this study to take seriously.

Filed Under: file sharing, handheld games, piracy, stats, video games

Author Joe Konrath Experiments With 'Piracy' To See How It Impacts Sales

from the give-it-away dept

Last week, we wrote about how author Joe Konrath felt that authors were going a bit overboard worrying about file sharing, noting that there was no way to stop it, and fighting it was just a waste of effort. Instead, he wanted to focus on providing more value for his fans. Joe has since followed up his original post with a bit of an experiment: purposely putting one of his ebooks online for free to see what happens, even though it's also available for sale:

I'll keep track of my free downloads, Kindle numbers, Paypal donations, and my rankings on Amazon and B&N for the next 30 days, then post the results.

And he's hoping people will help by promoting the book on various file sharing systems:

Also, I encourage pirates to post this everywhere. Go ahead and proliferate the internet with JACK DANIELS STORIES. You can explain that I'm encouraging it, or you can just take it and not say a word. I'd appreciate it if you post in the comments section where you're uploaded it, which you can do anonymously. Or you don't have to.

If anyone sees this ebook on file sharing sites, I also ask that you please post a link to it in the comments. The more places I can see this being shared, the better I can compare ebooks sold to ebooks shared.

Of course, some will complain that this is hardly a scientific experiment, but it should still be interesting to follow. My only worry with these types of experiments -- of which we've seen many -- is that it's in the give it away and pray variety. That can and does work for some, but is something less than a complete business model that purposely ties a business model to the shared files. If I had to guess, I'd bet that Konrath will see a boost in sales for this particular book and other books. And that's because he's using this as a pure promotional strategy. Others will complain, of course, that such a strategy doesn't work if every author does this. That's true -- and one of the reasons why I prefer more complete business models beyond "give it away and pray." However, one of the key things of a good business model is recognizing good promotional strategies that remain "low hanging fruit." And, in a time when you still have many authors freaking out about file sharing, embracing it is probably a good bit of low hanging fruit in building up an audience.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, joe konrath, piracy

When Anti-Pirates Sue Each Other Over Pirating Each Other's Technology...

from the this-gets-fun dept

Well, this is fun. A tech company in Germany is claiming that movie studio Warner Bros. has "pirated" its "anti-piracy" technology. No, seriously. You can read the full complaint (pdf) below: It's actually a patent infringement lawsuit, but unlike most patent infringement lawsuits, the company suing, Medien Patent Verwaltung (MPV), claims that it actually met with Warner Bros. and "disclosed the technology" to the company. While I have to admit that I find it quite amusing to see Warner Bros. accused of "pirating" its "anti-piracy" technology, when you look at the details, it seems like a typically ridiculous patent scenario, with some random company suing for patent infringement over something another company came up with independently.

Making things even more amusing? In the lawsuit, MPV mis-identifies its own patent, incorrectly using the title of a patent.. held by Warner Bros! MPV's patent 7,187,633 is titled "Marking of a data medium material for information intended for reproduction." Warner Bros., though, has a different patent, 7,206,409, titled "Motion picture anti-piracy coding." But in the filing... MPV refers to the title of its own patent as "Motion picture anti-piracy coding" and never mentions Warner's actual patent by that name. Ooooops. Oh, and the WB patent? Filed before MPVs...

Filed Under: anti-piracy technology, movies, patents, piracy, watermarking
Companies: medien patent verwaltung, mpv, warner bros.