MPAA statistics and rubber bananas
p2pnet news view | MPAA News:- For years p2pnet has been saying Hollywood ‘piracy’ statistics are as useful as mammary glands on a bull, as the saying goes.
Put another way, figures from Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney bear about as much resemblance to reality as do their claims that they’re being devastated by file sharing pirates.
As p2pnet contributor catflap recently pointed out, the movie industry recently celebrated its first ever billion-dollar January.
Not bad for a group of corrupt companies whose noble, but soon to be gone, leader Dan ‘The Joker’ Glickman swears are being forced to send support workers out onto the streets because of the ravages of online file sharing.
All officially steamed up
Last week Hollywood was shocked and horrified to learn a workprint for the Fux movie X-Men: Origins workprintwas on the P2P networks.
P2P file sharers?
Nope.
Hollywood insiders. As usual.
Its appearance caused studio mouthpiece the MPAA to declare the wicked perpetrators would be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” they paid good money for.
“The guess is that by now more than a million people have downloaded Wolverine and the Fox bean counters are all officially steamed up that such online exposure could eat into the film’s box office when it opens on April 29,” writes Jim Schembri in The Age, going on, “In 2004 the Motion Picture Association – Warner, Disney, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Fox and Universal — charged international strategy consulting firm LEK to survey the alleged damage of downloading.
“The conclusion, after 18 months’ research across 22 countries involving 20,600 people, was that in 2005 internet piracy cost the MPA $3.2 billion, with the total loss to all piracy clocking in at $8.5 billion. That’s a lot of bananas.
“Rubbery bananas.”
Reliable and accurate
By a remarkable coincidence, senior Walt Disney executive Kevin Mayer left LEK to join Disney, before which his responsibilities included “the creation of comprehensive anti-piracy strategies for motion picture studios and trade associations,” according to his bio.
But the bananas were considerably more rubbery and even that.
The MPAA 44% guesstimate, touted ad nauseam in the mainstream press as reliable and accurate, and presented to the US Congress as factual, ultimately dropped to around 3%.
However, after trumpeting the 44% figure as a major story, the mainstream media virtually ignored the news that the number was, and is, totally out to lunch. In fact, some elements of the corporate press corps continue to use the false MPAA 44% stat.
And with respect to the Hollywood claim that files shared automatically equal lost viewers (and cash), “A high-quality copy of the comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop appeared online a full week before its release,” says Jim.
“Now, if any film was vulnerable to the impact of effortless, cost-free internet piracy, it was this unremarkable, low-budget, made-for-DVD film. Yet Paul Blart not only did well, it exceeded everybody’s expectations by taking more than $220 million.
“Why, even the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire was unhindered by its early presence online. The film has been freely available for months, yet its unprecedented global take of $435 million has redefined the box-office power of good, old-fashioned word-of-mouth.”
Meanwhile, Hollywood’s projected losses are, “only estimates extrapolated from samples,” says The Age, adding:
“They are not hard, verifiable figures. And the fact that they run so completely counter to the current historic boom at the box office suggests there might have been something dodgy in the methodology.”
Dodgy in the methodology! The MPAA?
Surely not.
And as the story adds, “rebel downloading can reap unintended publicity benefits.
“Anybody who wasn’t curious about Wolverine before certainly will be now.”
Stay tuned.
mammary glands on a bull – Corporate piracy stats: lies, lies and more lies, October 9, 2000
recently pointed out - Hollywood’s first billion dollar January, March 24, 2009
soon to be gone – Late MPAA boss Valenti a ‘humanitarian’, April 8, 2009
Hollywood insiders – Oz FX house denies it leaked X-Men flick, April 6, 2009
The Age – The Hollywood fiction about piracy, April 9, 2009
remarkable coincidence – MPAA student stats scandal: update, January 4, 2008
to around 3% – MPAA says 44% of movie losses due to piracy on college networks, number could be closer to 3%, January 23, 2008
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April 9th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
BUT … but we could have got 600 million ROFL or maybe 1 billion …..of your hard earned taxpaying AIG spent Dollars.