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Does The MPAA Simply Make Up Piracy Numbers Out Of Thin Air?

techdirt.com — The MPAA will do anything to resist common sense, progress and making consumers happy.

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  • N3tw0rk, on 10/12/2007, -154/+25"Does the MPAA simply make up piracy numbers out of thin air?"

    Yes. Next question.

    • 0o0Moylan0o0, on 10/12/2007, -5/+42Way to copy someone else's comment.. Pretty much ruined any humour I got from it. -1
    • SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -6/+75I was going to say this too, but I noticed the comment and I realized it's a pretty cliche response. I figured I would say something really clever, but unfortunately I'm just not clever enough for that. So I'll go with a slight remix of a cliche:

      ***** the MPAA
    • DeathBorn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+51You're wrong. They don't make the numbers up from thin air, they make them up from their hot air.
    • pifko87, on 10/12/2007, -3/+58That's not a hair question. I'm sorry.
    • nikkesen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25"Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that."
    • Bega, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25hot air has a lower density than cold air, so technically it is thin air :P
    • Lnx991, on 10/12/2007, -0/+50[what MPAA thinks they deserve to make] - [what they actually make] = [amount of piracy]
    • wwwdot1jesdotus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+254 out of 5 people think the 5th one is an idiot.
    • CandidateZero, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31This "***** the MPAA" attitude has to stop, or rather, it has to be redirected. The many studios comprising MPAA organization just hide behind it, as the hundreds and hundreds of record labels do with the RIAA. Neither of these organizations sell anything to the public, so they have zilch to lose by a negative image.

      The MAFIAA is just a negative PR sponge that protects the real perpetrators. The MPAA and RIAA represents the interests of its clients -- the studios and the labels -- who are more than happy to have public ire directed away from them while they push their middle man organization to do the dirty work. The trend I would like to see is the targeting of studios rather than the shield that is the MPAA.

      The only way organizations like this will stop is if their clients become afraid of the negative PR that they will receive. The MPAA is a shield for these companies and the shield is the worst place to attack.
    • morriscat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Better question: Was the entire MPAA pulled out of someones ass?

      (not saying they are rabbits, think of the old joke on where lawyers come from.)
    • xst4t1kx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+360% of the time it works everytime!
    • schoate09, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I don't have a problem with the MPAA. I don't mind paying $15 for a DVD or HD-DVD of my favorite movie, to support the millions that go into it. The RIAA, that's another story. $1 per song that cost nothing to make, and no time to make, is ridiculous. $15 a CD, even worse.
      So I'm ok with the MPAA,
      But I loathe the RIAA.
      • Darph.Bobo, on 01/05/2008, -0/+1"I don't have a problem with the MPAA. I don't mind paying $15 for a DVD or HD-DVD of my favorite movie, to support the millions that go into it."

        Newsflash! You're part of the problem!
        Where do you think those millions went? To overpaid, well-fed, USA hating (not all of them), drunk driving, telephone throwing, slack-ass celebrities for a mere six weeks work.

        Do they deserve it or earn it? Just look how useless they are without writers and you're okay with that?

        Hollywood won't stop paying them the GNP of a small country until people like YOU stop saying.. it's okay. Hollywood is being ***** in the ass and passing it on to YOU!

        How do you like the MPAA now?



    • Lennalf, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1eh same comment below already. digg down plz.
  • Lambach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+62Man , I want a job using math , and not have to be right about it.
    • poracious, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33No you don't. Statistics show that 99% of incorrectly-mathematical jobs result in gruesome injury, 87% of that ending eventually in death. This is totally true, honest.
    • pifko87, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1266% of statistics are fictional.
    • FizixMan, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1@pifko87

      Yeah, but that means 34% of the time, they're accurate every time!

      And any gambler will tell you, 34% is a great chance!
    • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8You can convince 100% of people some of the time, some people 100% of the time and a statistician never.
    • clyde2801, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Apply with the Federal Government. Unfortunately for you, the Bush Administration will only be around for less than a year...
    • argusbargus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Just remember, there are three kinds of people in this world: those who understand math, and those who don't!
    • manamizer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11@Gmorgan
      So statisticians aren't people?
    • SaTaNKiLLeR, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Ya and you can watch them here http://www.dodigg.com/
  • doshindude, on 10/12/2007, -23/+5Oh Nine...Eff Nine....
    • DonSlice, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Now that we're allowed to post it, nobody wants to. It's taboo now. Sorry.
  • Sanchez, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Does the sun rise and set once a day?
    • fugitiveALiEN, on 10/12/2007, -9/+19Does the Pope crap in the woods?
    • Buckiller, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15Does cheesecake taste good?
    • FluffyArmada, on 10/12/2007, -1/+58When a man says something in the woods, and there's no women around to hear him... is he still wrong?
    • gingerchris, on 10/12/2007, -5/+26only if he's the pope
  • JimXugle, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1786% of all statistics have no basis in reality and should be disregarded as such.
    • Animal, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Of course, fourfty percent of all people know that.
    • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10There's a 94% chance that the person who made that quote banged his head hard on the door frame and hence is crazy.
  • destinywaste, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11what else can you expect from an association that is run by assholes.
    • 0o0Moylan0o0, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2hahaha, 'ass'ociation run by 'ass'holes

      /juvenile realization
  • acdcfanbill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5All US cam/telesync releases lately have those wonderful 'MPAA dots' cut out from them, so I'm not quite sure how they are determining where the cams are coming from. Man I hate those dots, they annoy the crap out of me every time I see them when I'm sitting in the theatre. They don't help either, so whats the point of annoying your customers. :(
    • Skas, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I'm sure I'll get some flak for this; nevertheless, which "MPAA dots"? The cigarette burns in the top right corner that indicate when a reel change would occur? Well, actually, anymore it'd be where the reels are spliced together as most theaters don't need to swap reels while running.
    • zetec, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Yeah, the black dots with the kinda yellow borders on them in the top right corners tell the booth operators where to splice together reels when they're building up a film. Nothing to do with the MPAA, who still suck regardless.
    • iSamurai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The MPAA sticks dots in the film at certain spots just for like 1 frame so they can track what theaters online releases are coming from.
      These are wholly different from what you guys think he is talking about.
    • flygirl62, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yah, not exactly like it's hard to miss the these-show-which-theater-this-copy-was-sent-to dots. I imagine that it's quite easy to remove them -- or at least cut out the frames that include them. You'd think they'd do something more subtle and harder to find.

      Anyone who is willing to CAM a move and then transfer it to digital media, can easily remove the frames with the dots... or, even more interesting, with a little editing, could probably move the dots around and maybe send them to a different theater. Of course, if there's some sort of checksum or something a random change wouldn't send them on a wild goose chase. But it would demonstrate the futility of the "dots."

      It just makes me wonder how stupid they think CAMmers are.
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@ flygirl62

      It might not be the dots themselves that tell which theater it came from, but rather where those dots fall in the timecode. It would be relatively easy to sync a cammed film with the master to find which frames are missing and thereby determine which theater the film came from.
    • acdcfanbill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's not that easy because some groups compare different sources, and they cut more than one frame. Also, I have no idea how the MPAA tracks theatres vs dots, but from thew ones I see, they are always different patterns.

      Also, a quick google search for MPAA dots reveals this article with a nice example.
      http://www.dvdfuture.com/fs.php?id=4
    • KungFuJesus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@actorboy

      Then they can just remove some frames that don't have the dots just to throw the MPAA off
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ KungFuJesus

      It wouldn't throw the MPAA of unless they removed that same frames as a copy from a different location. It would be pretty easy to see which ones fit their known patterns and which ones didn't.
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2@ me

      What the hell happened to my sentence on that last one? Looks like i was typing drunk.
  • stargatesteve, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It's not so much making numbers out of thin air, as it is pulling them. And it's not so much air, as it is ...
  • LiquidFusion, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Is the Space Pope Reptilian?
  • digitalranger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I'm just waiting for the AACS people to come out with that if it wasn't for piracy then they'd have had the funding they needed to make their encryption totally unbreakable. lol.
    • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I have unbreakable encryption. I copy the file onto HDD, melt the original disc with thermite, randomly swap bits of data, randomly blast it with random data, pass it through an MRI, pour acid inside it, nuke it then drop it into a black hole.

      No data coming out of the black hole. Perfect encryption.

      I should contact the MPAA in case they want to hire me for my unbreakable encryption.
    • digitalranger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Nice, perhaps with that method we could just encrypt the entire MPAA and RIAA eh?
    • benitojuarez, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4What happens when the hawking radiation decrypter is released?
  • aguilr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The MPAA found one of those electromagnetic "wormhole" thingies to get their statistics from!
  • penguinshome, on 10/12/2007, -2/+295% of statistics are pure *****.
  • p51d007, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8The MPAA makes up numbers just like a lot of others.
    For instance, when you hear on the news, (now this is an EXAMPLE!) "a person is killed in an automobile accident every 4.3 seconds"
    Run the numbers...that's 2,260,080 per year! Just pull down your "favorite" statistic and run the numbers and sometimes, you'll find
    what they give equals more than the population of the USA.
    Another thing they do is twist the percentages. They will say that x percent of something is better than it was the year before, but, the year before no one was doing x, so how can they come up with a number?
    I read everything, by enviromentalist, government, industry, ANYONE with a grain of salt. I do some research to find out where they come up with their numbers, ESPECIALLY polls! Depends on how they ASK A QUESTION as to how they get the answer they actually want. If I asked you, "If your choice was between person X, who says they are not and will not run for office, and person Y, who says
    they will run, who would you choice? Then, on the news, they will report that 80% of the people polled said they would vote for
    person Y. If all you read/saw what that poll, you would think that 80% of the people are for person Y, without even knowing how they
    asked the question.
    • perkbrian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7not exactly good grammar, not exactly on topic, but a good point
  • CanadianGuy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3This is the same logic evolutionists have been using for over 100 years. If you say something long enough and loud enough then people will eventually believe what you are saying regardless of the truth. It is all about the agenda they are promoting. I don't even think they care about all the money they could make, this is about control of the content and not letting the end user access to it.
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Your analogy is confusing. When you say, "If you say something long enough and loud enough then people will eventually believe what you are saying regardless of the truth," are you referring to MPAA statistics that show no proof, or the anti-MPAA diggers that show no proof in trying to debunk them?
    • AnotherBrian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I believe you're correct about the MPAA being more interested in control of the content rather than short term profit. Control = long term profit.

      As a side note: us 'evolutionists' actually have a ***** load of of real, independently verifiable, reproducible, directly observed evidence to back up our ideas about evolution.
  • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Everyone calls *****, but no one offers evidence to back the claim.
    • SpoBo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Lol .. do you need evidence to say something is inaccurate when they don't have any themselves? I read one line halfway the article and it had a brilliant point which I can verify. They pull the numbers out of their asses ... and their asses must be gigantic. I bet they all live in Texas and order a super sized menu every single ***** day ... twice! That's how big it must be for such ridiculously high numbers. And these fines are absolutely outrageous. First, the people filming this ***** don't make money for doing so (probably). Secondly prison time for filming something? What's next? The death penalty for running over a bunny? It's not funny to get ass raped in jail and receive your daily dose of HIV just because of taping some movie in the cinema.
    • SpoBo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1this shouldn't be here :x
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"What's next? The death penalty for running over a bunny?"

      Actually, you can be fined up to $5000 per incident and/or face up to year in jail for killing a bald eagle.

      And despite your "lol", you still offered no evidence. Saying someone pulled something out of their ass and proving it are two different things.
  • PjsPjs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I wonder if we were to organise a boycott of DVD's and CD's would anyone care?
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Pirates have already done that, and, yes, the entertainment industry has taken notice. You take the higher moral ground if you boycott the entertainent industry all together-- no piracy, nothing. Otherwise, you're veiwed by the general public as people who would rather steal entertainment than pay for it, whether copyright infringement is legally considered stealing or not.
  • tomis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It's quite simple: The MPAA is a terrorist organization. Arrest them now, and detain them as long as possible without charges, lose their paperwork, whatever it takes. They hate our freedom, they must be brought to justice.
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Taking a vidcam into a theater to pirate someone else's work is now a constitutinally protected freedom?
  • Arkholt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's all the same in the MPAA and RIAA and the like. I remember when "the customer is always right" was the prevailing business model. These days it's "the customer is always a criminal." Lower the price of movie tickets and make better movies and I'll go to them. Same with the RIAA. Lower CD prices and make better music and I'll buy it. It doesn't mean I'm stealing your product, it only means I don't like your product. Look at your product and find what problems it has before blaming the customers.
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You're only a customer when you pay for the product. The right to distribute a vidcam copy of a film is not covered by price of admission.
  • theendlessnow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I was recently at a school giving a talk to both Junior High and High School students about free software. At one point I asked them if they ripped music from CDs... about 75% said yes. I then asked of those how many shared copies of their ripped songs with friends, it was about 90% or more (possibly even 100%). I told them that I believe that the ability to rip the music is fair use (though I know that right is being taken away from us), but that when they gave their friends those ripped selections that they had violated law. Some I could tell didn't know they were violating the law (a simple way of saying everyone else is doing it... so I'll do it too).

    Just fyi...
  • dudefather, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0***** the MPAA, the RIAA and anyone else who stands between us and FREEDOM!!!!!!!towatchmoviesanddownloadmusicforfree!!!!!!
  • thomashallock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Instead of linking to other blog posts, here are links for the actual articles that cite the conflicting statistics:

    50% from Canada, From http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=114&sid=1130323

    "In a Nov. 30 letter, [Bruce Snyder, Fox's Hollywood-based president of domestic distribution], warned [Ellis Jacob, the Toronto-based chief executive of Cineplex Entertainment], a friend and business associate for 20 years, to do something [about the illegal camcording of a steady stream of Fox blockbusters, including Borat, Eragon and Night at the Museum]— or he would.
    ...
    In the letter, Snyder fumed that his company had discerned that, at one point during 2006, Canadian theatres were the source for nearly 50 per cent of illegal camcords across the globe..."

    50% from NYC, From: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070112.wpirates13/BNStory/Entertainment/home

    "The Motion Picture Association of America says more than 40 percent of bootlegged films are secretly videotaped in New York City theaters. The duplications are typically sold for mass reproduction or posted on the Internet, sometimes just hours after the movie has premiered."

    The claim about NYC does not cite any sources, which leaves me in doubt.
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Finally, someone is trying to bring in some sources. Thank you.

      There are only a couple of problems with it though. The NYC article cites the MPAA as the source for the 40% number (not 50%, as you posted), and relates it in general terms, while the Canadian article cites a Twentieth Century Fox team for the 50% number, relates it specifically to Fox releases, and couches it with the statement "at one point during 2006, Canadian theaters were the source for nearly 50 per cent of illegal camcords across the globe." In short: Two different sources for the percentages; and MPAA numbers relate to movies from multiple studios over a period of time, while the Fox numbers relate to Fox movies at a particular point in time. Given this information, they could both be correct.
  • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@ dudefather

    Are you taking the position that camming films should be legal? I disagree with most positions on Digg regarding copyright infringement, but I at least try to understand their viewpoint. That said, there is a big difference between wanting to enjoy your purchased entertainment on any device you own and feeling you have the right to go into a theater, videotape a movie, and then distribute it. Realizing why the latter is illegal should be a no-brainer.
  • vguard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Ha! A truly pointless gesture that accomplishes nothing.

    Has the RIAA become futile and impotent?

    I know many here tow the "corporate line" (IP rights are sacrosanct), but have each of you honestly given full consideration to the possibility that their might be a fundamental conflict between intellectual property rights, as their practiced today, and intellectual freedom? After all, it is your freedom that is at issue here... So, the topic seems to merit debate... Furthermore, doesn't it seem a bit improper that all these laws seemed to get passed without this fundamental issue being address in an open and honest fashion? If I remember correctly, we were simply told by the Media "this is the way it is" and then the laws were passed.

    Is this truly "government of, by and for the people"?

    Do these laws promote the advancement of the "sciences and arts" or are they simply the securing the financial interest of a few?


    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You lost me at RIAA. It's an MPAA story.
  • ultrahombre, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Now that I think of it ive heard all these stories about the MPAA cracking down on pirates and I with my little pirate group of freinds never even got a warning, maybe and hear me out on this, The MPAA is an unrealistic threat, that bluffs like crazy.
  • thecheatah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yaay mpaa sux blah blah blah.

    If anyone is wondering how they can tell where a movie was recorded from, what they do is place small hints in frames which a normal viewer will not notice such setting the length of "blackness" from one scene to another, or some other tricks to uniquely identify prints.

    When you rerecord this even on a camcorder, those identifiers remain and can be later used to figure out which source the movie was copied from.
  • Niteryder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They have no capability to check what anyone is doing. Even the logins to bit torrents can be by large botnet's using any ones IP,
    this organization uses mass media hysteria to piss people off, when there is no way to tell who did what where and when, without
    violating federal law and breaking into someones network or personal computer.

    It is a shame that crooks can rape American law under the pretense of protecting copyrighted material while they commit numerous
    federal offenses and hack machines on foreign soil...
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Whoa! They're the crooks? Not the people taking their work without paying for it? What kind of Bizarro world do you live in?
  • vguard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@actorboy

    Is using the copy function on your computer an act of force?

    Who are the ones with the guns?
  • kingofpenguins, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Does The MPAA Simply Make Up Piracy Numbers Out Of Thin Air?
    Answer: No

    That code is just that, a code, coding for something else...

    http://digg.com/software/Holy_Crap_Now_we_know_where_they_got_the_code_from
  • Crazychipmunk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In other news: The sky is indeed blue.
    • stevealford, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No, it's not. The light that comes through the atmosphere gets filtered, and the blue end of the spectrum gets filtered least, so it's the color you see when you look at the sky. Since you SEE blue, that means that the sky is retaining every other color and allowing blue to escape... so technically the daylight sky is every color except blue.
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ stevealford

      I still owe you an answer to your question in our last conversation. It's been a busy week and i haven't had time to sit down and construct it (I fear it will be long), but i haven't forgotten about you. I'll find you in another thread when I finally answer so you'll know to check back.
    • stevealford, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cool, actorboy... it's nice to have someone you may disagree with on a few points that you can actually have an intelligent discussion with rather than the normal name-calling ***** here on digg when people disagree. Of course, I actually think you and I agree in principle, but not application on the MPAA/RIAA issues. There needs to be a totally new structure for licensing/distribution/protection, but none of us have the authority to implement them (no matter how good the ideas) and the people who do have that power seem vehemently opposed to anything new.

      It seems that their logic is as follows: If you disagree with our policies, practices, enforcement, illegally obtaining IP information, threatening legal action against people who PROBABLY downloaded illegally unless they pay up front (racketeering), DRM, or any other thing we do, then you are a pirate and/or support piracy and want to take money from artists. I don't support piracy and I want artists to get paid and live comfortably enough so that they can keep entertaining me without needing a second job, but I DON'T support the MPAA/RIAA and I DON'T want them to keep artificially inflating the prices of media content, restricting its usage, and reaping massive profit from the creative works of others, to which they should receive no credit or profit.

      As for whether the MPAA makes up piracy numbers, the answer is: kind of. They take the estimated number of tickets they thought they'd sell, subtract the number of tickets they did sell, then use that number as the estimated loss due to piracy. We won't hear from the MPAA that Grindhouse was a flop because people didn't want to sit through three hours in a theater, see a chick with a machine gun leg, or were just totally turned off by the advertisements for the film(s); but we WILL hear that people pirated it and the piracy hurt their sales. When releasing the estimated piracy losses, they don't take into account other reasons that people didn't buy tickets (like just not wanting to go), because they think their initial estimates for expected ticket sales are pretty accurate, so they attribute any loss of estimated profit to be piracy-related. So it's like I said: they KIND OF make up the numbers, since they can't put a definitive amount on the number of people who download a movie or buy a bootleg.
    • actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ stevealford

      Just a quick response to this post: Agreed, if a structure can be found that would make both the creators of content and the disgruntled portion of the entertainment-buying public happy, I'm all for it.

      Also agreed that it would be nice if there was a better way to enforce their protection under copyright law. My feelings are, if you're guilty, pay the fine; if you're not, then fight it. It's not technically racketeering, but does walk a fine line when it's cheaper for the accused the pay up than fight. Let me be clear, I am very ant-piracy and feel people who pirate should pay, however, I do not support innocent people having to pay for something they did not do.

      Regarding inflated prices and reaping massive profit, you kind of help make my point farther down in your post: Grindhouse, as of April 27th, has grossed $23.9 million so far, but cost $53 million to make. The film is ranked an 8.2 out of 10 (Source for financials and rankings: IMDBpro). It's a good film that's not making its money back. Now, Hollywood could say, "We're losing money -- we'll never take risks again," but personally, I'd rather see them make a killing on blockbusters like Spiderman 3 so they can afford to take a risk on more underground and arthouse projects.

      Regarding piracy numbers, first, the numbers quoted in the article don't refer to lost ticket sales, but rather to where pirated films are coming from. That aside, and back to your point, I don't think estimated losses are based on tickets the industry hoped to sell, but rather on the fact that people are uploading and downloading movies in great quantities. This shows that there is a clear demand for their products. If illegal access to those products completely stopped, the demand for them would still exist -- and more products would be sold. Would everyone pirating suddenly start buying tickets and dvds? Nope. But some would. And even if that number is mere 2% of the pirating public, it's still an increase in sales -- sales currently being lost to piracy. In short, it's more a case of estimating how many people are accessing the movies, then subtracting the number that actually paid to do so.

      And yes, I really thought that would be a quick response.
  • Emachine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm 200% sure the MPAA sucks.
  • GeneralGore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The reason people would rather watch movies over the internet then go to a theater is because you have to drive 10-20 minutes out of your way so that you can stand in a line and pay for a ticket plus $10.00 for a small soda. Then once you get inside you have to sit in uncomfortable seats as your view is obscured by some annoying guy who has to repeat all of the jokes in the movie to his buddies 5 seconds after they happen. And while all of this is happening your shoes are being stuck to the ground because the janitors don't bother to clean the floors.
  • projectstartrek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3We estimate that uh.................76? yes, 76 percent of people on Digg are actually software pirates!
  • Cherubim, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0The MPAA pulls figures out of its ass and spins them beyond belief.

  • RoflMyWaffle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2well this may be true... here are some of the titles of camcorder movies i downloaded...
    1. The Fast and The Furious, eh?
    2. American History X, eh?
    3. Grandma's Boy, eh?
    ... you get the idea
  • RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Hey, MPAA... I think I'm going to make a cheesy trailer and send it to you.

    You wouldn't make up numbers on your tax return.
    You wouldn't make up numbers on your lottery ticket.
    You wouldn't lie about your income just to get laid.
    Why would you make up numbers to justify anti-piracy efforts?
    Making up numbers is LYING.

    I've just got to find a camera that can be shaky, some post processing to make it grainy, and a grunge font that would look like it would have been trendy in 2002 and I'm all set...
  • Travelsonic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"Does The MPAA Simply Make Up Piracy Numbers Out Of Thin Air?"

    Do you want the long answer, or the short answer?

    *crickets chirp*
  • EnigmaXII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Digg Me!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmqwn4Gx_fw
  • astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Does The MPAA Simply Make Up Piracy Numbers Out Of Thin Air?"

    No... they pull them out of their pompous asses.

    "OH... I need a number today to blame on piracy... **fart...ka-thunk**... oh theres one"
    -RIAA
  •  

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