Dubious Piracy Numbers from the MPAA · 347 words posted 07/09/2004 10:22 AM
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has released a study (PDF) claiming one in four internet users has illegally downloaded a movie. According to the MPAA, 24% of US internet users have stolen a movie, and an incredible 58% of Korean users reported stealing a movie. Here’s the chart provided by the MPAA:
The MPAA includes very little detail on the study’s methodology, but what’s included is suspcious:
- “Study participants were screened to be active moviegoers.” In other words, the MPAA sought out the people most likely to pirate movies, thus radically skewing the percentage of pirates upward. Pirating movies just isn’t very easy (yet), and casual moviegoers are unlikely to spend time overcoming the barriers to piracy, such as technical aptitude and network configuration.
- “Broadband users were specifically targeted for this study in order to represent the next generation of Internet users (approximately 80% of sample).” Again, this skews the numbers toward piracy. Let’s assume that the percentage of dial-up users stealing movies approaches zero. Doubt me? Quality movie rips are 1GB or larger, taking about 41 hours to download at 56 Kb. By the MPAA’s own admission, the study targeted mostly broadband users—but such users are less than 50% of American households. The MPAA’s reported rate for US movie piracy: 24%. But adjusting for the number of broadband users, that means roughly 10% of US households have downloaded pirated movies, not 24%. Again, if you correct for the MPAA’s self-selecting methodology, the number is likely to be much lower.
The study concludes:
The top means of preventing piracy in the future revolves around educating consumers that this activity is illegal. There is also strong interest in discovering means of legally obtaining movies.
That sounds reassuring—an acknowledgement that piracy is in part a cultural issue, responsive to consumer education and access to legal means of downloading—until you remember that the MPAA is behind the ART Act, the Pirate Act (see also here), and many other means of expanding government intrusion in the name of protecting intellectual property.
Piracy is a real problem, but numbers like this—flaky, alarmist claptrap—don’t advance anybody’s understanding of the issues.
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