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Switzerland Questions Crazy Hollywood Claims About File Sharing… Ends Up On Congressional Watchlist

Copyright

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Mon, Sep 24th 2012 08:28am -

Last December, we wrote about a report put out by the Swiss executive branch noting that, based on their research, it appeared that unauthorized file sharing was not a big deal, showing that consumers were still spending just as much on entertainment, and that much of it was going directly to artists, rather than to middlemen. In other words, it was a market shift, not a big law enforcement problem. At the time, we wondered if Switzerland had just bought itself a place on the USTR’s “Special 301 list” that the administration uses each year to shame countries that Hollywood doesn’t like.

That list doesn’t come out for a bit, but there’s another, similar list, put out by the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus (yeah) that has added Switzerland to its “bad countries” list along with China, Russia and Ukraine. Italy also joined Switzerland as a “first-timer” on the list — despite rulings that required ISPs to block access to various file sharing sites. The issue in Italy? I’d guess that a story we had earlier this year has something to do with it. After some political fighting, the government there basically decided to just stop regulating copyright issues online. There’s also an upcoming fight about new copyright proposals coming in Italy, and this seems like a preemptive strike for some of Hollywood’s favorite Congressional Reps and Senators to pressure Italy into approving bad laws that Hollywood likes.

Meanwhile, both Spain and Canada — who passed legislation very much at the behest of American interests — were removed from the evil part of the list and switched to “in transition.” The message is not particularly subtle: do not, at any cost, question Hollywood’s planned copyright laws, or the US government will shame you as a haven for pirates, no matter how bogus that claim really is. Hopefully governments in Switzerland and Italy resist such obvious lobbying on behalf of special interests and pay attention to reality in those markets.

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Comments on “Switzerland Questions Crazy Hollywood Claims About File Sharing… Ends Up On Congressional Watchlist”

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102 Comments
Loki says:

Re: Re: Re:

I saw a meme a while back that said that politicians should wear shock collars that give them a jolt every time they tell a lie or do something dishonest.

I wholehearted disagree. I think the people who voted for the politicians should have to wear the collars and get the shocks whenever their chosen representative lie or do something dishonest.

These people aren’t electing themselves into office, and if people are too lazy to turn off American Idol and Jersey Shore and simply vote for someone simply because they claim to follow one of the two major philosophies people tend to lean towards without verifying their actual actions, then you get the mess we have in this country.

Keii (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

A humorous idea, indeed, however I see a few issues with this.
There are two ways of administering a jolt based on dishonesty. The first is automatic administering when the collar detects that the politician things they are dishonest about something. The second is that there is a 3rd party controlling when the collar delivers a jolt.
The problem with the first scenario is that the politicians may not always think what they’re doing is dishonest. They may truly believe something dishonest is the right course of action.
The problem with the second scenario is that it’s ripe for abuse. I mean a nice quiet job for the MPAA would certainly persuade someone’s viewpoint on the honesty of a particular action.

Drew (profile) says:

America's Opinion

I just don’t understand how America’s opinion has that much sway. Who cares what we think? The USA gives money to a lot of countries, sure, but (as seen in the countries always at Israel’s throat) we continue giving money, even if they’re attacking our allies. I really doubt being on a piracy watchlist could threaten the gravy train. And aside from free money, I can’t see any other reason they might worry — it’s not like we’re going to go to war over it.

btr1701 says:

Re: Re: America's Opinion

> Perhaps it might have something to do with
> having the most powerful military in the
> history of mankind combined with the willingness
> to use it to get our way?

Oh, please. We’re not going to start carpet bombing Italy or invading Switzerland because they won’t change their law on file-sharing and everyone in the world knows it.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: America's Opinion

That depends, those usually most at risk are countries that the U.S. have been particularly helpful to but with limited ability to fight back, especially if a large portion of their military spending has been with the US.

From historical patterns it seems far more likely the US will attack the UK rather than Italy or Switzerland.
Israel might also need to watch it’s back.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: America's Opinion

Dear Drew

One hundred years ago, wars were fought with guns and bullets, bombs and house raids. Today wars are fought on the internet, with words (as it should be) we the Anonymous collective decree we shall give 0 fucks as to what laws breach our territories. The internet is ours, they can’t have it, we are already, at war.

Ophelia Millais says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

The CMU paper, which notes and draws inferences from a trend in the conclusions of a particular sample of academic literature on this topic, is what Richard said is biased, not the critiques mentioned therein.

Despite the CMU paper’s bluster about methodology and its highlighting of certain critiques, its own conclusions seem to be based on a biased sample, selected through undisclosed means (aside from a preference for academic papers based on empiricism).

The authors also acknowledged the outset that every paper they looked at is hard to compare because they all have such different focuses, data sets and methods. They further acknowledged that it’s really difficult for any study of piracy’s effect on sales to be methodologically sound, as there are so many unknown and uncontrollable variables. This is basically announcing that the whole exercise is unscientific, and you shouldn’t draw conclusions from it. But then (no big surprise given their “generous” MPAA funding), they proceed under the assumption that the critiques and harm-concluding studies they chose to look at are unassailable, and that it’s perfectly fine to make inferences based on a simple tally of harm-concluding and no-harm-concluding studies.

Shall we tally studies that conclude that God does or does not exist, and decide this issue once and for all?

Richard (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

Perhaps if you got beyond the second line of my comment.
Let me do a referee’s report on that paper (something I do professionally).

The paper reviews a sample of the literature on the subject. It notes that the majority of studies arrive at a conclusion that piracy does impact sales. However none of the papers in that majority has its methodology examined and critiqued. In contrast the group of dissenting papers is subjected to a severe questioning in an obvious attempt to discredit their conclusions.

Had the majority papers been subjected to a similar treatment it is certain that their methodologies could also have been demolished.

If I were refereeing the paper for SSRN I would have rejected it.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

1. Non-technical as primary argumentation is problematic since subjectivity and preconceptions will inevitably colour the result.

2. Using “major” papers exclusively as being from a large publisher is rather rich.

3. I do not know why, but piracy having a negative effect on sales is not really a surprise. It is a surprise that there are no distinctions between the levels of piracy-effects in the document.

4. The article almost exclusively goes in detail with the one result that could be an outlier. Again, that is a sign of preconception colouring the science.

5. The structure of the article is very much based around having a preconception and judging based on it. A more methodic and non-specific review would iron out a lot of the problems but would probably obscure the result as to be less clear.

In general I have no reason to doubt that most papers find a negative effect of filesharing. The argumentation and structuring is however a large detraction on the value of the rest of the findings. I would never use a problematic source like this in an article. It does, however seem like something MPAA, IFPI, RIAA and several other biased parties would use…

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

“In general I have no reason to doubt that most papers find a negative effect of filesharing.”

I agree. Where TD and I tend to cross swords, so to speak, is that such papers tend not to receive much, if any, attention here…and that is the rub. I believe most people are capable of entertaining both pro and con thoughts from which they can make their own informed decisions.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

I was a bit unclear there, sorry. What I meant was: “I have no reason to doubt that most of the examined papers find a negative effect of filesharing. I do not know enough about the subject to say the latter.

Another specification is a comment to “2. Using “major” papers exclusively as being from a large publisher is rather rich.” My point is that the exclusion criteria in itself bears a huge bias. If I wrote a paper on the effect of copyright I would have a bias in where I would publish. If my result was negative for copyright I would likely try and get it out through other means to avoid putting the reviewer and the paper in an awkward position. If I had a result that supported copyright I would be less concerned about that fallacy. That is an enormous problem with this article!

I agree that techdirt is mostly focused on the anti-copyright sentiments. On the other hand: Kicking down arguments for a stronger copyright is a lot harder to do in a diverse fascion since the arguments against something mostly comes in repeating some problems that have already been mentioned to infinity. It is a lot easier to give arguments supporting the skeptics of copyright a fresh spin. Techdirt is mostly taking specific cases and giving it a spin and that is definately a way to keep the news inspiring.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

the problem being that while you opine that papers that demonstrate a negative effect are not addressed here, it has been repeatedly asked in the comments by regular readers to point us to such papers.

I have been reading this site for many years and have yet to see a well-reasoned, cited, and evidenced response. If the paper is sound, the minds will be opened.

The problem has been that the papers that have been pointed to (if any) are those that are a) industry funded, b) based on a methodology that presupposes the answer (assumes copyright is good), or c) is a logic-based paper with no empirical or directly observed evidence.

New Mexico Mark says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Not a problem. I just funded my own study. (The funding was in the form of a cold beer and the study was scientifically conducted in the form of some very heavy pondering over the course of a few minutes while watching a rerun of Gilligan’s Island.) My study conclusively proves that the MPAA and its acolytes are a bunch of poo poo heads. So there.

If you don’t believe me, I may be forced to conduct a second study to prove that self-funded studies are GOOD.

average_joe (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Various research studies are regularly cited here for the proposition that piracy is at worst benign.

The below paper examines several such studies and the analytical methods employed:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2132153

Its conclusion seems to cut across the grain of “benign-ity”.

Who let you in here? Did you not get your Kool-Aid at the door? You’re not supposed to question the man behind the curtain. Just agree with everything he says and there won’t be any trouble. Got it?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

Actually, there’s nothing wrong with questioning people. It’s when you start stating “facts” that are supported by no actual facts or evidence that people begin mocking or ignoring you. As usually happens to you and ACs like the one above.

Amusingly enough, someone has already pointed out that the one study that shoots down other studies, by sheer mindblowing non-coincidence, is one that happens to be funded by the MPAA. Because we know how accurate their “studies” are. Which are the reasons other studies are conducted, basically to shoot down theirs. Now we have one of theirs “shooting down” the research conducted by other studies. Even more amusing is that they have the gall to examine the “analytical methods employed” by other studies, when it’s been shown repeatedly that they refuse to even allow others access to how they “compute” their findings much less what formulas they use to determine how bad piracy is and all that jazz.

Yes Joe, we get it. You hate Mike, you dislike Techdirt and it’s readers in general and so on and so forth. So now that you’ve patted your fellow troll on the back, can you add anything substantial to the discussion? Or can I just go ahead and hit the report button on your off topic and (thinly veiled) ad-hom laden post? [shrugs, hits “report” because he doesn’t care what response Joe has, as it’s irrelevant to the comment he’s reporting]

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

No, this is not a “shill” paper by “MPAA Proxies”. Despite the reference to the MPAA, I took the time to read the paper (Disclaimer: I am not an economist by any stretch of the imagination) and noted it was directed to the methodologies employed in other studies. It makes what appear to be legitimate observations, so at the very least I would expect those who follow economic research to give these two researchers a fair hearing.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

Okay, fair point. But what about a study, from the same group even (and even paid for by the MPAA to show lack of bias), directed at the methodologies employed in the MPAA provided studies? You know, the ones banded about for politicians and hailed as the Gospel Truth regarding the scourge that is piracy. Those studies. The same ones I’m referring to that the MPAA says, “Sorry, classified trade secrets,” when questioned by others about.

Also, I didn’t say this is a shill paper or was written by MPAA proxies. Don’t put words in my mouth. I just merely said it’s amusing given that they’re looking at faults in the studies of others, when others have pointed out the faults of MPAA studies over the same thing (and at least the studies of those others have the decorum of being polite and reasonable enough to make public EVERYTHING in their studies, from formulas used to well… everything).

Also, making what appear to be legitimate observations means nothing. I can make legitimate observations about the state of copyright and patents. But were I to do so, and as has happened and proof can be readily presented, I’ll be called a pirate and labeled a thief and whatnot by people like Average_Joe. For making legitimate observations.

So no, legitimate observations, while great aren’t something you can just say, “Aha! Take that other studies!” too.

But as I said, should these researchers be given access to and publish something on the MPAA funded and banded about “studies” then I will give them slightly more credence. Until then, I’ll be sure to continue rolling my eyes. I don’t believe everything I read. I prefer to read multiple things and then decide for myself based on all available evidence and facts what I think about a given matter. Which is the reasonable thing to do, wouldn’t you concur?

average_joe (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

Also, making what appear to be legitimate observations means nothing. I can make legitimate observations about the state of copyright and patents. But were I to do so, and as has happened and proof can be readily presented, I’ll be called a pirate and labeled a thief and whatnot by people like Average_Joe. For making legitimate observations.

You should hear the things I’m called for merely making legitimate observations.

average_joe (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

I’m insulting BECAUSE Mike has proven and continues to prove that he has no place in his life for an honest and direct discussion of issues that are obviously very important to him. What’s he hiding? (Rhetorical question. It’s obvious.) Don’t confuse the symptom with the cause. If Mike were forthcoming and engaging on the issues, I wouldn’t feel the need to constantly remind people that he’s not.

RD says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

“If Mike were forthcoming and engaging on the issues, “

He is forthcoming, and has stated many, many times where he stands, and what he stands for, on these issues.

Just because you dont like what he stands for does NOT allow you misrepresent that and wave your hand at everything he says and dismissively say “if only you would tell us what you REALLY think” when he has done that more times than is necessary.

Oh and a gratuitous ad hom for you (since you like using them so much yourself): hey, Average Jerkbag, stop being a whiny asshole. When EVERYONE tells you you are wrong, then

YOU

ARE

WRONG.

It’s not the world that needs to change to your viewpoint, its you who needs to recognize your faults and errors. Don’t whine like a little baby when the world doesn’t capitulate to your tantrums.

JMT says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

“I’m insulting BECAUSE Mike has…[blah, blah]”

No, you’re insulting because that’s just the kind of person you are. I have trouble imagining you’re any more popular in the real world than you are here.

“What’s he hiding? (Rhetorical question. It’s obvious.)”

It may be ego-crushing to you, but maybe he has better things to do? You’ve proven countless times that you’re just not worth investing much time in.

“If Mike were forthcoming and engaging on the issues, I wouldn’t feel the need to constantly remind people that he’s not.”

The thing is, most of us are able to get a very clear picture about Mike’s personal opinions, because we read the posts on his opinion blog. Your repeated demands for Mike to explain himself to you (beyond demonstrating an extraordinary sense of entitlement to someone else’s time) just make it look like you’re not smart enough to figure it out for yourself, despite it staring you in the face.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

See Joe, there’s a difference between legitimate observations and what you do.

Coming in to every article and insulting Mike is not making a legitimate observation. Going into the Funniest/Most Insightful Comments of the Week EVERY WEEK and then launching 200+ comments along the lines of “why won’t you debate me” and “but but but morals” and “yeah Mike runs away again” is NOT legitimate observations or even reasonable debate.

It’s you being a troll and a particularly annoying one at that.

You get called things. Boohoo. Should we start going through every article and then citing YOUR comments insulting Mike, Leigh, myself and others?

I bet we’ll find for every one insulting you at least five made by you insulting others. In fact, I guarantee at least five.

So get off your f*cking high horse. You want respect? Earn it. But don’t come in here the way you do and then act shocked when others call you out or insult you for it. You get what you dish out. If you don’t like it then perhaps you should try acting like an adult for a change.

average_joe (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

Why do you think it is that Mike won’t have an honest and open discussion about his beliefs? To me, that’s proof that he’s insecure and/or manipulative. Funny how he’s so critical of everyone and everything–except himself. Whenever he’s ready to stop making excuses and to start having direct and honest discussions, I’ll be here. Until then, I’ll have my fun pointing out his hypocrisy.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

I would not call MPAA financial impact studies actual “studies” any more than I would call local, financial benefits “studies” used by politicos when sports teams are trying to get taxpayers to cough up money to build them nice stadiums, basketball arenas, etc.

This paper of course is an entirely different matter. Are the authors spot-ot? I do not know, because like I said I am not one well-versed in economic theory. Nevertheless, I do believe that their paper is worthy of fair consideration.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

“Okay, fair point. But what about a study, from the same group even (and even paid for by the MPAA to show lack of bias), directed at the methodologies employed in the MPAA provided studies? You know, the ones banded about for politicians and hailed as the Gospel Truth regarding the scourge that is piracy. Those studies. The same ones I’m referring to that the MPAA says, “Sorry, classified trade secrets,” when questioned by others about.”

Did you read Mike’s “Sky is Rising”? That was paid for by groups (aka, Google and friends) who would love to see copyright disappear.

So Mike pulled together some numbers, ignored a whole bunch of reality, and generated the results they desired.

Studies can say anything the writer wants, provided they are willing to be selective in their fact selection.

The real skill is in going through a number of these sorts of things, and going back to the source material to see what is really there. When you do that, you can see the Sky isn’t Rising, but rather that someone is digging a really deep hole so it looks further to the top 🙂

average_joe (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Amusingly enough, someone has already pointed out that the one study that shoots down other studies, by sheer mindblowing non-coincidence, is one that happens to be funded by the MPAA. Because we know how accurate their “studies” are. Which are the reasons other studies are conducted, basically to shoot down theirs. Now we have one of theirs “shooting down” the research conducted by other studies. Even more amusing is that they have the gall to examine the “analytical methods employed” by other studies, when it’s been shown repeatedly that they refuse to even allow others access to how they “compute” their findings much less what formulas they use to determine how bad piracy is and all that jazz.

So you haven’t read it and you can’t address its substance. Got it. You assume that since some other study was questionable, then this one must be too. That’s called working backwards. Did you learn that from Mike? He’s the guru of that discipline.

RD says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Can we get "kool-aid" trigger the comment spam-filter ? We're being flooded here!

“Must be terrible having to read dissenting point of views. Hurry up and block those views out! Censor! Censor! Censor! If you ignore it, it goes away.”

Reporting your comments becuase you are a jackass so they are hidden (but can EASILY BE SHOWN with a SINGLE mouse click) is not censorship. You have proven over and over that its not only justified, but necessary.

RD says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Can we get "kool-aid" trigger the comment spam-filter ? We're being flooded here!

“RD: The definition of an angry boy with a TOR connection.

You really are a child, aren’t you?”

Right, dont address the issue or point, just hurl insults in a vain attempt to look “superior.”

Ever answer the copyright question on your icon? No? Evading the real issues in favor of ad hom personal attacks instead? What a shock.

N. Mailer says:

Re: Re:

“Various research studies are regularly cited here for the proposition that piracy is at worst benign.

The below paper examines several such studies and the analytical methods employed:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2132153

Its conclusion seems to cut across the grain of ‘benign-ity’.”

No, it doesn’t. This site points out that the research papers find that damage is minimal. Your paper linked above concludes that damages exists. Both sides agree … and so do I. Somewhere in the world there is at least one person who has torrented a movie she could have Redboxed instead because, and only because, “I want to save $1.25.” Harm exists and it’s benign.

Anonymous Coward says:

“or the US government will shame you as a haven for pirates, no matter how bogus that claim really is”

Hey, some parts of the US, as well as Australia, were first colonized by a bunch of ex-criminals (mostly people who couldn’t pay their debts in Britain) as a way of getting rid of criminals, and they turned out great. So they ought to embrace such a ‘pirate haven’.

Seegras (profile) says:

Re: Ahem...

Well, I’m Swiss, and I’m not entirely sure.

We’ve still got too much backroom-dealings going on (especially when it comes to things like “Intellectual Property” or “Law enforcement”), where EU regulations are taken over without anyone talking about.

To be fair, it’s the duty of the citizens (and representatives) to get informed about these things, and to demand a vote on them, but still, these international treaties get signed quite clandestinely, without much discussion or press reporting.

And the political party the most concerned about “foreign influence” which claims to be anti-EU, is of course the one immediately signing (or even driving the adoption of) any kind of international “Intellectual Property” or “Law Enforcement” treaties.

Well, anyway, the Swiss political system sure got its shortcomings, that’s why I’m in the Swiss Pirate Party.

But our democracy sure is a hell lot better than the “winner-takes-all”, “two-party”, “elect-and-have-no-say-anymore”-system of the USA.

Anonymous Coward says:

if Switzerland and Italy were to tell the US to fuck off, perhaps more countries would do the same. what right has any country got to tell another country ‘you are a naughty boy. you’re not throwing people into prison when they share music and movies they get from the internet or after buying it from shops’. if the US are so worried about this ‘heinous crime’, stop exporting the shit the labels and Hollywood put out. if it was all kept in the US, there wouldn’t be a problem. as for this list business? the US want to grow up!

Ophelia Millais says:

Re: Re:

This is about international trade and protectionism?basic macroeconomics. Every country says, through tariffs and trade agreements, “if you want to sell more of your stuff here, we need to be able to sell more of our stuff there.” The US, with these lists, is making a specific suggestion as to how, according to certain US industries, certain countries can make their markets friendlier to those industries’ exports. Presumably, if those countries comply, they’ll get something in return, like reduced tariffs on the products they really want to sell more of in the US. This kind of bargaining/bullying is something every country does. It’s unrealistic to suggest that any country stop seeking to export any of its product, as long as there is a potential foreign market.

The problem is that the US industries behind these lists are overstating the harm done to the market by Switzerland and Italy’s failure to crack down on piracy. They’re doing fine, and they would do fine in Switzerland and Italy even if those countries do nothing more than they’re doing today. They’re just trying to get more because they can…and because they really, really do not like the precedent set by governments who don’t roll right over.

Seegras (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

They do fucking fine in Switzerland.

http://www.schweizermedien.ch/fileadmin/schweizermedien/brancheninfos/medienbudget/2011_Medienbudget.pdf
(You can replace the 2011 with 2005 to 2010 to get older reports; in german).

That’s 3150 SFR (about 3350 USD) per household a year, half of which is spent on content. Not counting companies.

Italy is a different case, since they’ve got no money 😉

Ophelia Millais says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

A-yup. I was just in Italy and dropped about ?500 as a tourist…maybe it’s not Italian money they’re after. 🙂

I think it’s hilarious that the entertainment industry has to plead poverty whenever they talk about piracy, but then they have to wave their money around when it’s time to show the investors how healthy the companies actually are.

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