Techdirt. Stories about "envisional"

Techdirt. Stories about "envisional" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories about "envisional"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:42:51 PST NBC Universal's Own Preferred Researcher For 'Anti-Piracy' Stats Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120110/03502617362/nbc-universals-own-preferred-researcher-anti-piracy-stats-comes-out-against-sopapipa.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120110/03502617362/nbc-universals-own-preferred-researcher-anti-piracy-stats-comes-out-against-sopapipa.shtml piracy was Hollywood's own fault. NBC Universal and the MPAA twisted those results to say that piracy was a huge problem, but the data certainly suggested the real problem was Hollywood's failure to release what people wanted in formats that they wanted.

Still, we never expected Envisional to come out and actually make that same point (even if that's what the data said). Yet, as this recent Ars Technica article notes, at CES, Envisional's "head of piracy intelligence," David Price, didn't mince words in saying that infringement was, in fact, Hollywood's own fault for not offering products in the way customers wanted and that SOPA/PIPA were the wrong approach to fixing its business model problems:

"The content owners are really fighting the tide of the Internet," Price said. "They're trying to fight the flow of the Internet which is all about making content as widely available as possible, as easily as possible, as quickly as possible. They're trying to hold back the 1.4 billon users of the Internet from doing what the Internet wants them to do."

In discussing SOPA/PIPA:

Price does not like the way the bills are drafted, potentially causing major technical and free speech issues. "When I talk to content owners I try to tell them this is not the way to go," he remarked. "You don't want to hurt people. You want to try and go with a compete approach, put the content out there and hope people will come to you."

Again, none of this is surprising. We've been saying the same thing for ages -- and we get dismissed as "piracy apologists." Yet this is the research firm that NBC Universal has relied on and regularly quotes in making its arguments about just how "big" a problem infringement is. That says something. And that something is that NBC Universal (yet again) is unwilling to face reality.

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]]> well,-look-at-that http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120110/03502617362 Wed, 23 Nov 2011 07:46:18 PST New Research Shows Movie And Game Piracy On The Rise, But Won't Tell Us How It Knows Zachary Knight http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111112/09045016750/new-research-shows-movie-game-piracy-rise-wont-tell-us-how-it-knows.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111112/09045016750/new-research-shows-movie-game-piracy-rise-wont-tell-us-how-it-knows.shtml game, film, tv, and software piracy are on the rise in the UK. The report cites an increase of roughly 20% over the last 5 years. Interestingly enough, it also shows a reduction in music piracy over the same period. This could certainly be bad news to those companies whose movies and games are part of the study, but sadly, there is no way to verify the information.

What this report doesn't reveal is just how the researchers came to these conclusions. Unlike some recent objective research, this report is not transparent in any way. This lack of transparency is exactly what those Danish researchers want to change. However, not all research firms feel the same way. When a research firm such as Envisional, the author of this latest report, makes a living by providing statistics and other tools and information to content industries, it is their job to create research that adheres to what their employers want to hear. This is usually done by hiding their methodology in order to prevent the results from being debunked. After all, we have already seen what happens when honest researchers look at Envisional's data. Perhaps a closer look at the data is advised.

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]]> is-it-really? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111112/09045016750 Wed, 2 Feb 2011 14:42:00 PST NBC Universal Study Shows That It's Hollywood's Own Damn Fault So Much Content Is 'Pirated' Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110202/12013712931/nbc-universal-study-shows-that-its-hollywoods-own-damn-fault-so-much-content-is-pirated.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110202/12013712931/nbc-universal-study-shows-that-its-hollywoods-own-damn-fault-so-much-content-is-pirated.shtml 24% of web traffic involves "piracy." If you look through the actual methodology, done by research firm Envisional, there are all sorts of problems with it, including the fact that they seem to bootstrap these findings based on research done by others. Another problem is that the source Envisional used, the PublicBT tracker, does not include many of the legal BitTorrent uses, meaning that they may have significantly undercounted legal usage.

Of course, the MPAA is using this data to suggest that piracy is a big problem, and governments need to step in and help (of course). Yet... if you actually look at the data, as Rob Pegoraro at the Washington Post did, you get a very different picture. It really suggests that all that movie piracy is the industry's own damn fault for not making legitimate content available online. This is not news of course. One of the main reasons why people access unauthorized copies is because they can't get legitimate copies. The movie industry is so infatuated with "windows" that it doesn't seem to realize that restricting how people can access their movies only drives more and more people to unauthorized means.

Pegoraro compares the different stats in the report and notes that there's a very clear indication that when legal alternatives are available, the amount of unauthorized file sharing drops considerably. So if the MPAA's goal is to reduce file sharing, then the answer is to start offering legitimate services. Pegoraro even asked the director of the study about this, and the guy agreed:

I think the availability of legit content in the US may be one reason why infringing use is lower in the country than elsewhere worldwide: the US has Hulu, Netflix, Amazon VOD, Vudu, streaming content from the tv networks, etc. This level of availability just can't be found elsewhere. Further, the content in the greatest demand online is that which originates from the US -- television shows and films in particular -- which often take a while before they appear in other countries.

So, the real lesson of this study is that the large amount of unauthorized access in movies online is the MPAA and NBC Universal's own damn fault for failing to adapt and to offer legitimate services to the market when they want it. Thanks for sharing that information with the world...

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