[Infowarrior] - MPAA ­ Oops, College Students Aren ¹ t So Bad After All!

[Richard Forno]

MPAA¹s Error ­ Oops, College Students Aren¹t So Bad After All!
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Posted by Hugh DAndrade
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/01/mpaa-s-error-oops-college-students-aren
-t-so-bad-after-all

When the MPAA began their campaign against piracy on college campuses, they
waved a study that purported to show that 44% of the film industry¹s losses
were the direct result of illegal downloading and filesharing by college
students on US campuses. The MPAA (and others like IPI and PFF) used that
number to ramp up the pressure on Congress to pass legislation that would
force colleges to eavesdrop on their networks and crack down on filesharing
on campus.

44% is a pretty high number, and many were justifiably skeptical. Now, it
seems the MPAA has been forced to admit that its numbers were not exactly,
um, accurate. After diligently re-checking its math, it has admitted that
the 44% figure was really more like 15%.

But even that number doesn¹t tell the full story. Only 20% of college
students live on campus, which means that if college students are
responsible for 15% of the movie studios¹ piracy-related losses (a number we
still find dubious), then campus networks are responsible for something like
3%.

So the MPAA is urging universities to install expensive, ubiquitous, and
ultimately futile filters and surveillance equipment to solve 3% of their
piracy problem. Makes you wonder if colleges and universities are really the
best place to attack movie piracy, doesn¹t it?

These ³restated² MPAA numbers suggest that the MPAA is targeting
universities not because college kids are a serious threat to the movie
industry¹s bottom line, but because the studios hope to set a precedent on
campus that can be used to force filtering on larger commercial ISPs. It¹s
bad enough that the government is eavesdropping on our Internet activities,
without having Hollywood joining in.