Some In The Press Realizing That Copyright Industry Claims Of 'Losses' From 'Piracy' Are Bunk

We've pointed to a couple of laughable new reports that were released by copyright industry interests in the past couple months, pushing claims of ridiculously high "losses" due to copyright infringement. The reports have been debunked, but part of the concern was that mainstream press, such as The Australian, were spreading these reports as fact. Thankfully, not everyone in the press falls for such questionable studies. The Sydney Morning Herald recently published a rather comprehensive look at all of these reports and studies, entitled: Piracy: are we being conned? It does a really nice job pushing back on all this industry-backed research, to point out that the story is more complex and nuanced that those fear-mongering claims make it out to be:

The Australian Institute of Criminology for one has been reluctant to take the industry at its word when it comes to piracy losses.

"Although these estimates provide a general indication of the scale of the problem, the validity of the data is open to some debate," the AIC wrote in its latest report on intellectual property crime in Australia.

The AIC has previously debunked claims that piracy was linked to organised crime and in a draft report leaked in 2006 said industry-provided piracy statistics were "self-serving hyperbole".

"The AIC's frustration was largely based on the fact that none of these groups will expose their reports to genuine peer review or analysis," said Kimberlee Weatherall, a senior law lecturer at the University of Queensland, who specialises in copyright law and is highly critical of the industry's piracy reports.

"When the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) looked into it at the request of US Congress, it expressed doubt about most of the industry-produced figures."

Piracy figures derived by the entertainment industry have also been heavily criticised in the US and Europe. In some instances, the industry has admitted to grossly inflating its numbers.

The article includes a lot more debunking of industry FUD. Nice to see that the press is finally realizing that claims that come from an industry looking for government protectionist laws to be adjusted in their favor can't necessarily be trusted.

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