I am sure that most of us have heard the gloomy words by the various recording industries. Statements such as “lost output for U.S. industries of $20.5 billion per year, thwarts the creation of about 140,000 jobs and accounts for more than $800 million in lost tax revenue” (Washington Post) are quite common from those industries. These types of figures have been met with a high degree of skepticism in my experience. However, until now I have not heard of a serious rebuttal to those claims. The Australian government has funded a report into this situation, and an early draft is causing some controversy.

$361 million a year of lost sales in Australia are “unverified and epistemologically unreliable”

The report, prepared by Australian Institute of Criminology(AIC), is very critical of the claims of the copyright owners such as the Business Software Association. The report finds that some of the statistics gathered by copyright owners are “absurd”, and comments on the “potentially unqualified use of these statistics in courts of law,”. Another contentious point is the link between organized crime and piracy. Copyright holders have been claiming that for a while now, but the report by the AIC finds “Either there is no evidence of any links between piracy and organised crime or it is simply beyond the capacity of rights holders to identify these links,”.

It is important to point out that this is a draft of the report, and at least one senior AIC member has taken issue with it. Russell Smith of the AIC points out that “The report hasn’t been finalised. It’s still being edited and revised.” and “We wouldn’t use language like that because it’s not accurate, it’s hyperbolic and overblown,”. Mike from TechDirt correctly points out the interesting twist when he states the “language in the report is “hyperbolic” which is exactly how the report describes the copyright industry’s claims.”

It is an interesting report, even if it is a “draft”. It raises some good points, which I hope gets further attention. In particular, as objective a look as possible into the situation would be nice.

Sources: TechDirt, Australian IT