What does the BPI's (British Phonographic Industry) latest shock-horror puff piece have in common with p2pnet's April 1 spoof?
The BPI says, "UK record industry trade association the BPI today revealed research indicating that the cost to British music of illegal filesharing reached £1.1bn in the three years to 2005."
Our NDP p2p file sharing study joke piece says, "NDP estimated the total value of product illicitly acquired by the teenaged criminals cost the music industry $104 billion dollars in lost sales.'
The commonality is: p2pnet's figure is pure BS, and the BPI's is pure BS.
Oh, and apparently, there was also a loss of £650m in trade value.
We saw the release yesterday and held off on a post because we wanted to see if the mainscream media would query the numbers. None of the reports we saw, did.
The BPI, owned by the members of the Big Four Organized Mjusic cartel, said they're true, so as far as the world press corpse is concerned, they're true and it's left to the likes of p2pnet to gainsay them. Because no-one else will.
In further creative calculations, the BPI claims its campaign against "illegal filesharing" has resulted in a drop in the, "percentage of the population illegally downloading" of 15.4% in 2005 from 16% in 2004 and 17.8% in 2003.
In fact, file sharing statistics from p2p research firm Big Champage say the exact opposite. The number of file sharers rises steadily year by year.
The Big Champagne stats on the left show the numbers of people simultaneously logged onto the p2p networks at any given moment.
And there's no such thing as "illegal file sharing," of course. At absolute worst, there's possible copyright infringement. But that doesn't look as good in a fluff piece.
How does the BPI study arrive at such precise numbers? Only the BPI knows.
However, the software industry's BSA (Business Software Alliance) owned by Microsoft and others of its ilk also arrives at interesting statistics and as Britain's The Economist wrote in an item prefaced, "Dodgy software piracy data" and entitled, BSA or just BS?:
"It sounds too bad to be true; but, then, it might not be true. Such jaw-dropping figures are regularly cited in government documents and used to justify new laws and tough penalties for pirates".
The editorial also states:
"The association's figures rely on sample data that may not be representative, assumptions about the average amount of software on PCs and, for some countries, guesses rather than hard data. Moreover, the figures are presented in an exaggerated way by the BSA and International Data Corporation (IDC), a research firm that conducts the study. They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.
"To derive its piracy rate, IDC estimates the average amount of software that is installed on a PC per country, using data from surveys, interviews and other studies. That figure is then reduced by the known quantity of software sold per country-a calculation in which IDC specialises. The result: a (supposed) amount of piracy per country. Multiplying that figure by the revenue from legitimate sales thus yields the retail value of the unpaid-for software. This, IDC and BSA claim, equals the amount of lost revenue."
One can assume similarities between the way the BSA gets its findings and the way the BPI, and all the other entertainment and software industry 'trade' associations, get theirs.
By an interesting coincidence, concurrent with the BPI's 'release' is one from another Big Four owned 'trade' body, the IFPI. It announced 2,000 European men, women and children are being targetted for possible court actions for not buying Big Four 'product'.
Back to the BPI, "The percentage of downloaders using only legal services has doubled from 11% in 2004 to 23% in 2005," it states unequivocally. "31% use both legal and illegal services. But 46% of downloaders do so only illegally."
More pure BS.
Only Apple's iTunes is having any luck peddling the lossy, overpriced downloads supplied by EMI, Warner Music, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, all of whom are currently being investigated by US federal and state authorities, and iTunes isn't even a true music service. It's iPod loading technology. And its success don't even compute stacked against what's happening on the indie sites and p2p networks.
And how, in the firstplace, would the BPI know what downloaders are doing, let alone be able to give precise figures on their activities?
There's a lot more BPI BS in a similar vein. But it isn't worth repeating.
Meanwhile, BPI chairman Peter Jamieson said, "The UK record industry is the biggest single investor in British music."
Actually, Jamieson, the people who buy 'product' made by your four bosses are the biggest investors. And they're still being taken to the cleaners.
In fact, file sharing statistics from p2p research firm Big Champage say the exact opposite. The number of file sharers rises steadily year by year.
