Is On-Line Advertising Near a “Tipping Point”

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.html

Illegal Movie Piracy by College Students Overestimated

Here’s an article I’d like you to read, and then we’ll discuss as a class.  Illegal file-sharing, digital rights management, and how industries try to control itellectual property.  This article is about how the statistics used to show that college students were stealing movies was wrong:

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/01/29/green

The Movie Industry’s 300% Error

By Kenneth C. Green

“A week ago today, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) issued what had to be a hugely embarrassing news release acknowledging that an aggressively promoted and widely cited research report commissioned by the MPAA in 2005 significantly overstated the Internet-based peer-to-peer piracy of college students: “The 2005 study had incorrectly concluded that 44 percent of the motion picture industry’s domestic losses were attributable to piracy by college students. The 2007 study will report that number to be approximately 15 percent.” The MPAA release attributes the bad data to an “isolated error,” adding that it takes the error seriously and plans to hire an independent reviewer “to validate” the numbers in a forthcoming edition of an updated report….”

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