MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study

MPAA ADMITS MISTAKE ON DOWNLOADING STUDY
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Justin Pope]
Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong. In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus. The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so. But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss. The MPAA says that's still significant, and justifies a major effort by colleges and universities to crack down on illegal file-sharing. But Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, says it doesn't account for the fact that more than 80 percent of college students live off campus and aren't necessarily using college networks. He says 3 percent is a more reasonable estimate for the percentage of revenue that might be at stake on campus networks.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/01/22/entertainmen...

* Studios admit error in piracy study
http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSN2365001520080124

* Congress Should Demand MPAA Data on the Cost of Piracy
Public Knowledge: "Hollywood can pay for all the studies it wants, but when it seeks to use those studies as “evidence” of the need for legislation to impose technology mandates on industry and on higher education institutions, the public has the right to see whether that “evidence” is at all valid. Until then, Congress should refuse to consider any legislative proposals based on this or other studies purporting to demonstrate the cost of piracy."
http://feeds.publicknowledge.org/~r/publicknowledge-main/~3/222032598/13...