[Infowarrior] - NBC Universal's Own Preferred Researcher For 'Anti-Piracy' Stats Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

[Richard Forno]

NBC Universal's Own Preferred Researcher For 'Anti-Piracy' Stats Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

from the well,-look-at-that dept

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120110/03502617362/nbc-universals-own-preferred-researcher-anti-piracy-stats-comes-out-against-sopapipa.shtml

This is fascinating and unexpected. We've discussed the research firm Envisional a few times here at Techdirt. The company is NBC Universal's preferred research firm for coming up with stats that NBC Universal then uses to insist that it needs new laws like SOPA/PIPA. Some have certainly called into question Envisional's research as a paid vendor. However, a year ago, we noted that if you actually looked at the details of the research Envisional did for NBC Universal, it actually showed that piracy was Hollywood's own fault. NBC Universal and the MPAA twisted those results to say that piracy was a huge problem, but the data certainly suggested the real problem was Hollywood's failure to release what people wanted in formats that they wanted. 

Still, we never expected Envisional to come out and actually make that same point (even if that's what the data said). Yet, as this recent Ars Technica article notes, at CES, Envisional's "head of piracy intelligence," David Price, didn't mince words in saying that infringement was, in fact, Hollywood's own fault for not offering products in the way customers wanted and that SOPA/PIPA were the wrong approach to fixing its business model problems:

"The content owners are really fighting the tide of the Internet," Price said. "They're trying to fight the flow of the Internet which is all about making content as widely available as possible, as easily as possible, as quickly as possible. They're trying to hold back the 1.4 billon users of the Internet from doing what the Internet wants them to do."

In discussing SOPA/PIPA:

Price does not like the way the bills are drafted, potentially causing major technical and free speech issues. "When I talk to content owners I try to tell them this is not the way to go," he remarked. "You don't want to hurt people. You want to try and go with a compete approach, put the content out there and hope people will come to you."

Again, none of this is surprising. We've been saying the same thing for ages -- and we get dismissed as "piracy apologists." Yet this is the research firm that NBC Universal has relied on and regularly quotes in  making its arguments about just how "big" a problem infringement is. That says something. And that something is that NBC Universal (yet again) is unwilling to face reality.


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