Stilgherrian » bob debus

Links for 10 November 2008 through 13 November 2008

del.icio.us — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:51:26 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 10 November 2008 through 13 November 2008, greased up and wearing a beanie:

Against Australian Internet Censorship? We Must Change Our Arrogant, Flawed Strategy | Let’s Take Over: Someone who manages to talk about Internet censorship with even more anger than me, though the anger is directed at those who poorly manage the political arguments against censorship.
If you look long enough, you can find anything on the Internet | The Weblog With No Name: A nice little piece about the need to preserve our knowledge, “just in case”.
ISP Content Filtering Live Pilot | DBCDE: The official call for expressions of interest from ISPs who want to take part in the Australia government’s Internet censorship trials.
Filter advocates need to check their facts | ABC News: Network engineer Mark Newton’s latest piece about plans for Internet censorship.
Get the Picture - Video | Screen Australia: A detailed analysis of the video industry in Australia, with lots of useful statistics and graphs. The site also has analysis of cinema, free-to-air and subscription TV, interactive media, the audiovisual trade and international comparisons.
A Brief Lesson on the Practicalities of Internet Filtering/Censoring for the Current Australian Government | UserFriendly: The metaphor has been used before, or at least variations of it have, but this cartoon version might spread the meme more widely.
Destruction Day for Pirated DVDs | Minister for Home Affairs: Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus’ original media release claiming the figure of $1.7 billion for the cost of illegally-copies DVDs.
Film piracy “funding” Islamic militants | ABC News: According to Optical Media Board chairman Edu Manzano, the Abu Sayyaf — blamed for the worst terrorist attacks in the South-East Asian country — are likely behind the illegal copying of movies onto DVDs, which are then peddled at Manila shops by migrant Muslim traders.
US Attorney General: Piracy funds terror | ars technica: Another source for the trope that illegally copying DVDs funds terrorism.
What piracy crisis? MPAA touts record box office for 2007 | ars technica: The US box office continues to grow, despite all the rhetoric about piracy.

5 Random Semi-Related Posts

Crikey: The inflated cost of illegally copied DVDs

Stilgherrian — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:28:01 +0000

[This article was first published in Crikey on Monday. I've also added the comment and additional material which were published yesterday.]

Hurrah! The War on Terror is over! Well, at least it seems we’re no longer afraid of terrorists, because when Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus warned that illegally copying DVDs costs the industry $1.7 billion, for a change terrorism didn’t get a mention.

Major distributors have been trying to scare us off illegal copying for years. Australia’s laws were “harmonised” under the US Free Trade Agreement so copyright infringement became a crime. Gloomy doom-music-laden messages play before every movie. Serious people tell us that “piracy funds terrorism”.

“The Abu Sayyaf — blamed for the worst terrorist attacks in the South-East Asian country — are likely behind the illegal copying of movies onto DVDs,” reckons Edu Manzano, chairman of the Philippines’ Optical Media Board.

“The Yakuza are behind them in Japan and the Hezbollah are involved in the Middle East,” though he admits they lack “documentary evidence”.

Bob Debus’ weekend media release omits the “piracy funds terrorism” trope, saying instead that it funds “a range of criminal activity like drug trafficking and money laundering”. (Hang on, isn’t money laundering self-funding?) But by the time the story hit the ABC the government’s current bogeyman had been added to the list: child pornography. Ooh err.

Terrorism is insufficiently scary. Neither are the actual dollar costs.

$1.7 billion? Where’s that come from? We asked the minster’s office but they didn’t reply before deadline. US “estimates” on that scale have been thoroughly debunked.

Screen Australia says DVD sales boomed in 2007, up around 20% over the previous year. The entire net worth of the DVD sales industry is “only” $1.2 billion, which makes a “piracy cost” of $1.7 billion sound unlikely. They quote LEK Consulting’s estimate that 47 million illegal DVDs were in circulation, compared with 52 million legitimate sales — at a cost to the industry of $231 million, not $1.7 billion.

Of course “the industry” wants things to sound bad. But with record US box office receipts and booming DVD sales, could it be that there’s simply too many hangers-on between producer and consumer? After all, the $29 retail price of a music CD only delivers a dollar or two to the actual musicians. Apple’s iTunes and other online distributors take a far smaller cut, and the punters are starting to realise that.

If they’d rather slip a disc into their PC and burn Dark Knight for a mate rather than pay full retail, it means they don’t think the price is right.

The Industry Response

[This "industry response" was published in Crikey yesterday, as was my additional comment about the source of the statistics which follows it.]

Simon Bush, CEO of The Australian Visual Software Distributors Association, writes: Re. “The inflated cost of illegally copied DVDs“. The Australian Visual Software Distributors Association (AVSDA), representing the home entertainment film distributors, is certainly impacted by lost sales due to film piracy. I would not suggest it is the $1.7 billion as quoted but is large enough for the industry to put their hand in their pockets to fund million dollar consumer education initiatives. We would not do this if we did not think it important.

In terms of the links between DVD film piracy and organised crime, I believe the AFP and Interpol have confirmed this. As for this comment by Stilgherrian: “If they’d rather slip a disc into their PC and burn Dark Knight for a mate rather than pay full retail, it means they don’t think the price is right” this is irresponsible at worst and ignorant at best. If you don’t like the cinema ticket price for a film do you sneak in for free? If you don’t like the cost of a product do you steal it? If you wanted to watch the $185 million cost to produce Dark Knight on DVD and you thought buying it for $25 too steep then rent it for $5.

Don’t promote stealing and why is intellectual property seemingly worthless — or is it only Hollywood that is fair game?

Where the numbers came from

Stilgherrian writes: Minister Bob Debus’ office has told us the $1.77 billion cost to the industry quoted in the media release about illegal DVD copying came from Australian Institute of Criminology report “Intellectual property crime and enforcement in Australia“. The report’s Executive Summary says:

The negative impact of IP [intellectual property] crime includes adverse effects on business, the national economy, and consumer health and safety. For example, the software industry has argued that a 10-point drop in piracy globally could create 2.4 million jobs, $400b in economic growth and $67b in additional taxes.

Estimates of the loss to various sectors in Australia include the following:

$233m per year due to the piracy and counterfeiting of films (LEK 2006);

$677m of lost sales, in 2002, in the Australian toy, software and video games industry. This includes $445.7m lost sales in the business software industry (Allen 2003);

$515m in absolute losses in software piracy in 2006 (BSA & IDC 2006);

$45m per year as the cost to Australian subscription television industry (ASTRA 2006a);

$300m per year in breaches of trade mark as losses to the textile, clothing and footwear industry (ACAG 2000).

So, only $233 million was about copying films, which matches Screen Australia’s analysis. The remaining $1.5 billion has nothing to do with DVDs. I reckon that’s a tad misleading. The numbers are also sourced from “industry estimates” without any sign of critical analysis, but being requoted by the AIC gives them the air of officialdom. Screen Australia provides some lovely graphs which show a DVD industry that’s positively booming.

5 Random Semi-Related Posts

Govt Internet filtering plan “quarter-baked, at best”

Stilgherrian — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:13:02 +0000

Free speech campaigner Irene Graham (pictured) has updated her page on the Australian government’s Internet filtering plan.

Very little detail has been made publicly available, although the Labor Party (ALP) announced a mandatory ISP filtering policy in 20 March 2006. Two years later, all indications are that their “plan” is still quarter-baked at best.

A good non-technical summary, opening with a great quote:

“[P]reventing information flow, communication or the exchange of art, film and writing on the internet is a task only King Canute would attempt.”
– Bob Debus, (then) NSW Attorney General, Speech at the OFLC International Ratings Conference 2003.

Ms Graham also has a quick world tour of Internet blocking. For a good technical summary, Electronic Frontiers Australia’s paper is still one of the best.