[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.

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The only reason musicians trying to “make it” are poor is that as soon as they do get that sought-after recording contract they still pay for everything from there on. Before they see a single cent from their music, they have to pay off the studio hire, recording engineer, video director, stylists, set designers, editor and dozens of other parasites — including music company executives with their nice lunches and their BMW leases.

An entire industry — “the music industry” and their retail outlets — sits between the musicians and their audience, sucking out something like 90% of the money in the process.

And they have the gall to rope musicians into their propaganda film under false pretences, telling people like Frenzal Rhomb’s Lindsay McDougall that it was a movie about life as an artist.

He said he was told the 10-minute film, which is being distributed for free to all high schools in Australia, was about trying to survive as an Australian musician and no one mentioned the video would be used as part of an anti-piracy campaign.

OK, so who are the guys in the photo? Jared Madden (left) and Adam Purcell (right) have created tune-out.com in response to the industry crying poor.

They know that thanks to teh intenetz, we can distribute that music from musician to audience for a fraction of a cent. They know that the audience is deciding for themselves what’s hot or not through this social media thing, and that the entire music industry is becoming irrelevant.

You the Music Industry have failed to move with us in our discovery of new and exciting ways to interact, collaborate, and communicate. We have embraced the digital space and the opportunities it affords us, and we have changed because of this. We are developing new forms of entertainment which have transformed the way we interact with each other, with you, and with music. This is an ongoing process, and we are excited about what we will discover tomorrow.

For some reason you assume that we are the same as yesterday, and you are kidding yourself.

You wrongly place the blame of declining CD sales on others. Our source of entertainment has diversified, and we are no longer as interested in the concept of the ‘album’.

There is no digital music battle or piracy war. That is a figment of your imagination, and, every time you preach our digital crimes to us, we ‘tune out’ of your deranged ranting. Your declining profits are the symptom of a business model that is fast becoming irrelevant.

You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.

Hear hear. I have signed their letter. I look forward to the video they’re producing this weekend.

Meanwhile, read Mark Pesce’s essay, Unevenly Distributed: Production Models for the 21st Century. I’ve linked to it before, but it’s especially apt today. Or read about 1000 True Fans.

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If the video doesn’t work for you, go directly to part 1 and part 2. Hat-tip to Peter Black.

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We must all do whatever we can to preserve America by refocusing our priorities back on the contemplation of lethal threats — invisible nightmarish forces plotting to destroy us in a number of horrific ways. It is only through the vigilance and determination of every patriot that we can maintain the sense of total dread vital to the prolonged existence of a thriving, quivering America.

Our country deserves no less than every citizen living in apprehension.

Fear has always made America strong. Were we ever more determined than during the Yellow Scare? When every Christian gentleman lived in mortal terror of his daughter being doped up on opium and raped by pagan, moustachioed Chinamen? What about the Red Scare, when citizens from all walks of life showed their pride by turning in their friends and associates to rabid anticommunists? Has America ever been more resolute?

Hat-tip to Bruce Schneier.

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No, it wasn’t a Labor party official announcing a change in their funding source. Nor some mythical official spokesperson for “intellectuals” — could there ever be such a central organisation? No, the “official” is just the journalist who wrote the story, or his sub-editor.

In one way this is like that common mis-use of the word “literally”. As in: “Kevin Rudd was literally torn apart in Parliament this afternoon.” But there’s also some lovely propaganda at work — either because the journo thought it’d make it more dramatic, or because (heaven forbid!) The Australian is continuing its pro-Coalition stance.

First, “intellectual”. Standard right-wing name-calling, part of the cluster of words they’ve created which usually includes “latte” and “chardonnay”. They’ve successfully made a word meaning “one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate, or ask and answer questions about a wide variety of different ideas” into a bad thing. Yes, how dare someone think!

But read the full article. The word “intellectual” is freely interchanged with “tertiary degree-holder” and “university-educated”. That includes nurses, teachers, accountants, naturopaths (yes, you can get a Bachelor of Naturopathy now, don’t get me started!) and “sport tourism managers”. Intellectuals, according to The Australian.

Now the story actually has an important core. The key swinging voters who might affect this election are very different from the parties’ traditional members.

The Liberals, originally the party of business, is now kept in power by blue-collar conservatives: “Howard’s battlers” who’ve bought into the scare campaigns about non-whites and non-Christians. They used to vote Labor before they changed from being employees into self-employed contractors and bought overly-large houses at Kellyville. Suddenly they’re fascinated with interest rates — though they haven’t yet figured out they’re set by the Reserve Bank in response to the global economy, not John Howard personally.

Meanwhile the “doctor’s wives” demographic, who once voted Liberal because their husbands and fellow tennis club members did, now drift to Labor thanks to issues like climate change and concentration camps for vulnerable refugees. They’ve vote for the Democrats (except the Democrats have imploded), or perhaps The Greens (if they washed).

This is an important news story, with serious implications for all political parties and how they run their campaigns. But The Australian just couldn’t help clouding it with propaganda. Neither could I.

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The government’s Climate Clever campaign is, apart from a wonderful subject for satire, apparently a nice attempt to re-associate the word “clever”.

As Possums Pollytics explains, it’s trying to re-frame the word away from “John Howard is clever” as in “tricky” to “clever policies on climate”.

Word association is a powerful propaganda weapon. Think Beazley and ticker, Keating and elitist, Latham and learner, and now Howard and clever. If the Libs could disassociate the word clever from Howard and re-associate it with climate change policies, not only would they neutralise the ALP attack, but would reduce the power of any residual word association with Howard.

A shame it’s probably way too late to make a difference. Possums also reports on the latest AC Nielsen polls with a simple “Business as usual. Nothing to see here folks, please move on.”

Mr Howard, please just call the bloody election. The longer you leave it now, the more you’re going to piss off the very people you’re trying to impress.

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You can download the table of contents and summary (21k PDF) free. The full report is $21.

To quote from the media release:

“Dog whistling allows politicians to subliminally send multiple and ambiguous messages to voters whilst denying they are doing so,” [Australia Institute Executive Director] Dr [Clive] Hamilton said. “It is becoming a refined art in Australia.”

The paper defines the common features of dog-whistle politics as: deniability; a select target audience; and coded, implicit or subliminal communication.

Words and phrases commonly used in dog whistling include: “Australian values”; “the guilt industry”; “the thought police”; “the black armband view of history”; “practical reconciliation”; “border protection”; and “be alert but not alarmed”.

Study author Josh Fear said: “Dog whistlers have been well-placed recently to exploit community concerns arising from overseas conflict and the threat of terrorism. They have also sought to create and inflame paranoia about minority groups and outsiders, and to taint the politics of immigration and Aboriginal affairs with parochialism and suspicion.

“If the dog whistle is done well, only the target audience has the cipher to crack the code, while those on the outside remain oblivious. Even some of its perpetrators fail to understand the extent to which this undermines democracy. Dog whistling works insidiously against the clarity and directness which is essential in political communication, because voters have to make judgements about which individual or party is best placed to represent their interests.”

Mr Fear said politicians on the conservative side of politics are more likely to use dog-whistle tactics. Politicians to the left of centre seeking to distort the truth are more likely to resort to “spin”.

I’ll probably read the full report across the weekend. I daresay I’ll have something to say.

And I do like the fact that the report has been written by a Mr Fear.

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Another week, another big-spending government TV “information campaign”. This one’s for the new Citizenship Test — and gosh, that just happens to be a Coalition-specific policy and it just happens to be running when we’re not in an election campaign, honestly.

And last night immigration minister Kevin Andrews was seen on TV with a bunch of potential citizens — all of whom, by some happy coincidence, had reasonable English and were not particularly unphotogenic. But he was still defending the test.

This TV advert is little more than dog whistle political propaganda. That’s clear for two reasons. First, look closely at the script (below). And second, if you wanted to reach the people most directly affected, mass TV advertising is far from cost-effective.

I’ve written about the pointlessness of a multiple choice Citizenship Test before. But even if the alien implant in your back teeth tells you that a glorified pub trivia questionnaire will produce better-integrated citizens — as opposed to just creating a black market in the test answers — this TV advert is clearly about something other than bringing that test to the attention of the people who might be sitting it any time soon.

Here’s the script:

Australia’s introducing a Citizenship Test.

It’s a way of making sure that people becoming citizens know about Australia, and understand the responsibilities and privileges of committing to our way of life — things many of us take for granted like democracy, mutual respect, and equality of opportunity, and the values we share like free speech and a fair go.

Preparing for the test will also introduce people to our history, traditions and some of our national customs and symbols.

The test questions are based on this book, which also explains a citizen’s responsibilities and privileges.

Understanding our values will help people take part in Australian life, make a contribution, and become part of our diverse community.

You can find out more about the new Australian Citizenship Test at australia.gov.au.

Citizenship — your commitment to Australia.

Authorised by the Australian Government, Canberra.

Note how the emphasis is on “responsibilities” and “commitment”. Sure, it mentions “privileges” too, although by implication privileges still have to be earned. Those words are all about conforming to rules, written or unwritten.

Note, too, that it isn’t addressed to potential citizens. It’s talking about them, not to them. Not “Understanding our values will help you take part in Australian life,” but will help people. Some people other than you watching the TV. Them. The scary ones.

And that, of course, is the message the Coalition wants to send.

“We’re protecting you from the scary foreigners. They’ll have to change their evil ways now. They know that Federation started in 1914 and Phar Lap’s heart is in Bennelong. Our Way Of Life is safe.”

Yes, as Senator Lyn Allison point out, hard-working, good-hearted, committed people will be denied the right to vote because they don’t know that the golden wattle is our national floral emblem.

Now the ad spend…

Potential citizens are already Australian Permanent Residents, and have been for years. The Department of Immigration already knows where they live, their nationality and presumably what languages they speak. So if you wanted to tell them about the new test, just send them a letter. It’d be a lot, lot cheaper.

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Earlier today I nearly choked. Despite Kevin Rudd making some minor tactical errors, despite squillions of our dollars being spent on government propaganda, Labor’s primary vote has reached its highest level since Kevin Rudd took over the leadership last year.

54%! Factor in preferences and that means the 2-party-preferred (2PP) vote is 60.5% to 39.5% Labor’s way. Astounding!

The graph (right) shows Peter Brent’s meta-analysis of all the major polls for the last six months. Clearly, all this talk of “a swing back to Howard” is crap. They’re just little wiggles in a much bigger picture that tells a very clear story.

There’s always a big gap in the middle of at least 10 percentage points.

Brent reckons the weighted aggregate 2PP vote is 56.5 to 43.5 in Labor’s favour. If so, Labor wins two-thirds of the seats in Parliament.

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But that’s OK, because a multiple-choice “Citizenship Test” is meaningless. Let’s remind ourselves what happened when Apu went for US citizenship in The Simpsons. “Being American” was reduced to a cliché.

And the booklet itself is a gorgeous piece of political propaganda that’ll achieve the following:

• The bitter old Alan Jones listeners Howard thinks he needs to placate will be relieved to see an emphasis on the UK as the biggest source of migrants and Christianity as the biggest religion. They’ll think this will stop the “wrong” people becoming citizens. Once more, Howard is Big Tough Daddy protecting them from the woggy bogeymen.
• It’ll cause Howard’s much-hated “elites” — that is, anyone capable of using logic, analysis, multi-syllable words or joined-up thinking generally — to run around in circles for a week or two, losing focus on real election issues.
• Howard gets another chance to moisten over all those “achievements” he personally considers important but which he could never achieve himself — being a soldier (because of his hearing problem) and playing cricket (because he’s completely bloody hopeless).
• It’ll create a minor black market in the answers to the test, which will appear approximately a week after the first potential citizens are processed.

What’s remarkable is how backward-looking the booklet is… and how biased to Howard’s personal interests.

The words “science”, “physics”, “medicine”, “genetics”, “aviation”, “satellite”, “solar” and “film” don’t appear at all, despite Australia’s renown contributions in those fields. “Beer”, “ale” and “lager” are completely absent. “Literature” appears just once. “Computer” only once too — in the context of the test being computer-based.

Who was the first Prime Minister of Australia? Who cares? “George Washington,” suggested our Korean cleaner this morning with a laugh — but of course most Australians would indeed know more about the US system than our own. Do we really need to know where Phar Lap’s heart is? Will the Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Olympics really be of any relevance in 5 years time?

Are we choosing Australian citizens for the 21st Century, or putting together a geriatric pub trivia team?

One question really makes me laugh, though. Who do members of Parliament represent? This is a trick question, right?

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