Apparently, the MPAA has “taken into account” the exact flaw that I described in my earlier post. They specifically asked study respondents how many of the movies they pirated would have been purchased (or viewed in theaters) if they could not have pirated them.
Fear not, though…they’re still a bunch of booger-heads.
According to ArsTechnica, nobody has seen the survey. The press release was merely a collection of talking points, with none of the data revealed.
Ars brings up two good points:
- You can’t apply the same criteria to domestic and foreign populations. Piracy is a much deeper cultural norm in some societies.
- They regard copying for personal use, as well as decoding for use on portable video platforms, as piracy. In other words, they consider “Fair Use” to be whatever they think is fair – not what the law says is fair use.
Remember kids – if you own a video iPod or a PSP, and you want to put a DVD that you purchased on it , that’s considered copyright infringement by Big Content*.
Screw you, booger-heads. Nowhere in the law does it say that am I obligated to prop up your failing business model.
*Actually, it isn’t. It is actually a violation of the DMCA, since you must circumvent the DRM to put the video in another location.