This may come as a shock to all of us but the government thinks that the people who provide the piracy numbers for big media, may be fudging a little or lot, depending on ones point of view. You see the government [General Accounting Office] seems to think that the numbers being provided may be inflated. How much are the numbers being inflated? No one really knows. But according to one article it states that:

“Three widely cited U.S. government estimates of economic losses resulting from counterfeiting cannot be substantiated due to the absence of underlying studies,” the GAO said. “Each method (of measuring) has limitations, and most experts observed that it is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the economy-wide impacts.”

Though there is a general consensus that piracy can cause a drag on the economy and a loss of revenue, there are some folks who were interviewed who provided a positive effect of copying copyrighted materials.

“Some experts we interviewed and literature we reviewed identified potential positive economic effects of counterfeiting and piracy,” The GAO wrote. “Some consumers may knowingly purchase a counterfeit or pirated product because it is less expensive than the genuine good or because the genuine good is unavailable, and they may experience positive effects from such purchases.”

“Consumers may use pirated goods to ‘sample’ music, movies, software, or electronic games before purchasing legitimate copies,” the GAO continued. “(This) may lead to increased sales of legitimate goods.

As I originally stated, even the feds seem confused. What is also disturbing is that the report had no recommendations on how to stop piracy.  Seems kind of strange to me. Oh, I forgot, it is the government I am talking about. LOL

Conclusions: piracy is good and bad, all at the same time. Piracy is only sampling of music, movies or electronic games, before one decides to buy it. It is a crazy world we live in.

Pirates 1 Media 0

Comments welcome.

Source