http://techdirt.com/articles/20081003/1946432453.shtml

Commerce Dept Cites Bogus Stats, Chamber Of Commerce Uses Them To Ask Bush To Accept Copyright Czar

from the bogus-stats-are-fun dept

We've seen it time and time again, where totally bogus stats about the "costs" of "piracy" are floated (usually by lobbyists) and then suddenly accepted as fact. It's even worse when it's government officials citing the stats as fact. Yet, we've got that happening again. In urging President Bush to sign into law the ProIP bill, which would give him a copyright czar (something the Justice Department had said it it doesn't want), the US Chamber of Commerce is claiming that 750,000 American jobs have been lost to piracy. Yet, it doesn't cite where that number comes from.

Wired's David Kravets tries to track down the source but finds no one can quite figure it out. Instead, they each point to different gov't organizations which have all quoted the number -- often citing each other, but no one pointing out where it actually came from. Chances are, of course, that the stat comes from a variety of reports, like the easily debunked piracy impact report from the BSA, put together by IDG. That lists out a number for job losses in the software industry that's simply untrue, and is based on only the negative impact of "piracy" impacting jobs, leaving out any positive impact (i.e., if a company used only pirated software, it could hire more people). That's not to defend piracy, but to note that the job loss claim is completely made up -- and now repeated by a variety of different government officials based on... nothing.

=========

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/fiction-or-fict.html

Fiction or Fiction: 750,000 American Jobs Lost to IP Piracy

By David Kravets EmailOctober 03, 2008 | 4:11:45 PMCategories: The Ridiculous

Usdc_2

Declaring that 750,000 Americans are out of work because of intellectual property piracy, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is urging President Bush to sign legislation creating a cabinet-level copyright czar to oversee expanded IP enforcement efforts.

Those are eye-popping numbers, equaling 8 percent of the official number of 9.4 million unemployed Americans.

But the origin of that 750,000 number -- which was included Thursday in a Chamber of Commerce lobbying letter (.pdf) to the president -- is a mystery.

A spokesman for the Chamber of Commerce said Friday that the nation's largest business lobbying group obtained the figure from "several federal government departments and agencies," including the U.S. Department of Commerce.

In an e-mail, chamber spokesman Alex Burgos provided a link to a Sept. 21, 2005 statement from then-Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez citing the 750,000 figure.

The U.S. Department of Commerce, however, said Friday that it obtained the number from the Chamber of Commerce. "That information was provided by the Chamber of Commerce," Emily Lawrimore, a U.S. Department of Commerce spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview. "That's where we received the information from."

The 750,000 figure is repeated on the Chamber of Commerce's website section on intellectual property, but cites the office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection as the source.

And then there's the same number again appearing on a 2007 joint U.S. Department of Commerce-U.S. Chamber of Commerce press release. A link on the press release goes to the Commerce Department's trademark division dealing with small business. Atop the website is this flash message we captured with a screenshot:

.png file

typical contrived data to get political action on an agenda

And worse yet, you have to be a member to tell them to stick their figures up their ass.

...which is where they came from in the first place.

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4040

RIAA loses $222K verdict against Jammy Thomas

Isn't that more relevant than some of the lame ass articles you guys have had here recently? Why no comments about real cases?

That's old news RaidHHI. Where have you been?

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/09/riaas-222000-verdict-in-capitol-v.html

Besides, this is very relevant, since creating a Copyright Czar is something that would greatly benefit the RIAA.

INeedALover,

I've been upto my eyeballs in disassembly printouts and screens for weeks now. Sorry.

"Old news" now, but did BRIAA post an article pertaining to it at the time?
(If yes, then I missed seeing it.
If no, then RaidHHI's point stands.)

BTW, if we had an article on it, someone please tell the number of it by reference, so I can go there and read it. Thanks.
P.S. I read the link given by INeedAlover; good stuff.