Shifty study proclaims Brits a nation of freetards

I can answer that.

".....impacts.......the future sustainability of our copyright industries."

The word "fucked" springs irresistably to mind.

Title goes here

Ho-hum. Just the crock of shit we would expect from a government advisory board. I'll let the other 6,999,999 explain why.

Paris, because more than 7m have downloaded her movie.

'Ere we go again

Just who has paid for this study?

You guessed it! Billions lost in revenue ? My arse. Why not clamp down on all of them by shutting all the ISP and file Sharers.

The billions recovered will pull Britain our of recession within a month!

Even Paris can be counted on to make rational judgements.

Re:wait

25 quid is one, but every day? That's like 175 quid per week. Please, give me a break...

Quick quick!

Someone alert the Chancellor of the Exchequer! There are 7 million Brits sitting on 120 billion unspent pounds...

Surely there must be an error somewhere. Shouldn't this be Zimbabwe Dollars?

Somebody stop me!

I've not paid for any music, videos or software for years & I can't be the only one. The only thing I don't bother with is copies of cinema releases because the quality is usually crap. DVD rips are fine though.

All your 1's and 0's belong to U$...

> The report helps put the scale of the problem into context

The report puts some perspective on the problem of how irrelevent current copyright laws are in the information age and the futility and counterintuitive nature of dubious efforts to sustain legal frameworks designed to support outdated business models based around distribution and protection of physical media.

Statistic bovine fodder strikes again..

Statistically 9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape

By their own logic

The authors have ingored the supply-demand curve to their own ends and pretended that the number of copies is a constant. Therefore each free distribution is lost income.

If we apply the same logic but state that consumers' disposable money is constant; then they are overcharging by £130 billion, as this is the money being made by them that they should be earning by distributing these copies themselves (at a lower cost per consumer).

Since copyrights are government sponsored monopolies it appears that the copyright owners are guilty by their own admission of monopoly abuse and should be punished.

It's only logical.

£17k per year?

Does anyone spend £17,000 per year on Dvds, let alone over 10% of the population? 120 billion quid just shows how ridiculous these studies are becoming.

'Illegal downloading'

David Lammy, Minister of State for Intellectual Property, said, "Illegal downloading is not an issue confined by national boundaries."

Doesn't inspire confidence in the powers that be when even the tit-in-charge doesn't recognise that there is a difference between 'illicit' and 'illegal'.

Here's hoping he's on the Daily Torygraph's expenses list.

"huge economic losses"

So all this money that is not being spent on purchasing legal copies of music/movies/etc. is just mysteriously vanishing into nothing? Not being spent instead in other parts of the economy at all? WOW! that is some bizarro economics you people have over there!

I'll stop downloading stuff when they stop lying.

£120 billion? Bollocks.

The only purpose of these lies is to stop the public complaining when draconian surveillance is applied to the internet (and anything else for that matter)

25.369978858350951374207188160677 is not a title?

That's the number of pounds each item downloaded is assumed to bw worth, and hence how much the copyright holders have lost.

Pillocks

3D cinema FFS

"Hollywood studios, meanwhile, have recently focused on keeping cinema attendances up via the promotion of 3D films."

Yeah, I saw a Nightmare on Elm Street 6 in 3D.

It sucked.

So did Jaws 3D.

My dad laughed, he said "We had 3D films in the 60s and they don't really work". How right he was.

...and how like Hollywood to attempt to flog another nearly forgotten gimmick to death when they've run out of other ideas.

cyber ware with no weapons

My view is this, everything on the internet is logged, tracked, archived, nothing damming will be done about it because allowing use of this information would mean enforcments are necessary, which no authority in the matter would ever do anything about.

plus, what is more important to the "real" authority is the fact that millions of people are still (even if its freely) ingesting the contaminated and highly hypnotic entertainment, put out by that SAME AUTHORITY.

if it was me i would think (well, we are still getting what we want, and i can just start a fake war if need more cash).

when the s*!t hits the fan, noone will be able to do anything without complete approval from those that feed us.

and, another thing...

if only everying that was down loaded was what it was meant to be.....

...........how many times when downloading the 'for review' copy of "Formulaic Hollywood Blockbuster Movie part 32" - do you actually end up with the 1001st copy of "Debbie does Dallas" or "animal Farm"?

The music holiday is over, get back to work.

Once upon a time, artists used to actually tour and play live to make their money. Now they release a single or two a year and spend the rest of the time on holiday. I really hope that file sharing completely destroys the music industry as it stands today, maybe then we'll have a return to real musicians rather than the fakers that fill the industry at the moment, just trying to make their quick buck and get out. Remember what music is about!

Aren't the claimed losses

Offset by the entertainment industries reselling the same stuff in different formats - don't we all know people who bought their favourite album on LP, cassette, 8-track, 180g vinyl, CD, 20-bit remastered CD, extended CD, enhanced CD, Super Audio, DVD audio, anniversary edition with outtake tracks, Japanese gold cd with mini LP cover, the album as a singles collection, then the tracks as video, vcd, dvd, hd-dvd, blu-ray. Great and £15 quid or so each time.

(Legal) downloading is gonna hurt the industry cos you just get the track(s) you want from an album not all the filler crud.

For some things you can't be a customer - albums that haven't been reissued - how does the entertainment industry intend to help meet our needs with those?

@and, another thing

Animal Farm? Why not simply buy the book you will have it forever.........unless we're not talking about the same......

title

let me look at this way,

1st, is there a new movie coming out everyday of the year or a new game or a new song, if not then then the estimate is wrong.

2nd, I believe that many people download movies for a single viewing then remove it, last time I checked this is the equivalent of renting. Do people pay 25 quids to rent a movie or game in the UK?

3rd, there is no proof of the age of the downloaders, they can't prove that the download is not some kid (not even 15 years of age) who can't watch the said film legally let alone afford it.

4th, 25 quids x 30 days a month = 750 quids..... how many people out there are going to spend 750 quid on movies and games every single month? ( I know no one who does that and the only person I know who can afford it does _NOT_ watch anything but the news. READ: workaholic businessman)

Drugs

Yep, same maths going on here as we get with 'massive drugs haul'.

How much have all these bloody surveys and presentations and inquiries cost?

'Kin parasites - and that ain't the downloaders.

Real pirates are the 'experts'

but it could have all been avoided so easily...

10 years ago, the first incarnation of Napster was just finding it's feet and the record industry was making a huge fussabout suing people etc. etc.

if they had just opened their fricking eyes back then to the idea that people were looking for new ways of obtaining their music they could have built up the infrastructure to deliver it at low cost to the consumer and keep their customer base secure.

unfortunately now, with the growth of the internet over the last few years the common man has had a peek into what geeks have been doing for the last 10 years and cottoned on to the idea that they can have all the music they ever wanted without paying for it.

all they have to do to get it is mentally smudge the lines of what is right and wrong and what is and isn't stealing and now the genie is out of the bottle and everyone has had a good taste of what 'fee' music is and thre's no way that the industry will be able to turn the whole thing back round to their way of thinking.

Paris cos she knows how to copyright her assets.

Justifying your actions

This is the usual run of comments from a bunch of copyright thieves.

Yes you are stealing. Yes it is illegal.

Here are your usual flawed justifcations:

1) It was a rip off to buy...

2) It's a TV series broadcast on TV so it's okay to download

3) They make squillions anyway

And a new one for today

4) The statistics are flawed.

Well if it makes you feel better than well done you. If you want to steal then steal but don't wrap it up in some bullshit "power to the people" rant.

Want that Job

So if you have £17,000 a year to spend on digital entertainment thats disposale income after tax and living costs. Average house price is £150000 (approx) so mortgage payment on that would be £700 per month based on a 100% mortgage payed back over 25 years with interest @ 3%

Are there 7 million people living in Britian (11% of the population) who can afford £750 per month on digital media !

don't think so somehow .

But wait...

...what about the rightsless content that is also on P2P networks, e.g. Linux ISOs, home videos, public domain sound recordings? What about all the movie trailers that are dumped out by the movie studios? Are they now worth 25quid a pop?

Yet another completely pointless, self-serving junk report that proves only that the "researchers" suckled deeply on the corporate teet and hardly bothered to actually research at all.

And of course the report then becomes the foundation of "policy"... policy that the electorate does not want, need or support. Worse, the content of the report is never questioned by those deciding the rules; I bet they only read the summary page and then claim the time on expenses......

Math?

So "If each “peer” from this network" of "1.3 million users sharing content (not the largest) downloaded one file per day the resulting number of downloads (music, film, television, e-books, software and games were all available) would be 4.73 billion items per year."

N_Items = 1.3 Musers * 1item/d * 365 d/y x*1y = 474.5 Mitems

Darn, I still don't understand statistics!

So we're all in agreement

No point making the point every other commentator already has.

But remembering the old saw "don't get mad, get even", I have to wonder if there's a legal counterattack possible. Given its historical antecedents, the government of the UK is a very high-handed outfit, but reading the news carefully, it appears that various actions of the nomenklatura nonetheless can be subjected to judicial review.

Who's got the deep pockets necessary to hire a good lawyer and go before a learned judge demanding that this shabby bunch of cooked statistics be condemned, disowned, and withdrawn?

It might also be fun to solicit the attentions of would-be moles and find out just who actually wrote this steaming pile of bullshit, then name and shame them.

Or perhaps they've simply plagiarized from propaganda emitted by the RIAA and/or MPAA. A revelation along those lines in one of the fiestier dailies might be good for a few laughs.

Special memo to Jacqui Smith and her subordinates: this kind of bullshit no longer works. No right-thinking person believes a word you say anyway, but when you issue lengthy reports that are so obviously biased in favor of pre-determined positions, you simply throw more shit at your own tattered reputation. Resign now, you horrible little ex-cooking teacher, you.