[solaris]

If you pay any attention to the endless debates over intellectual property policy in the United States, you'll hear two numbers invoked over and over again, like the stuttering chorus of some Philip Glass opera: 750,000 and $200 to $250 billion.

The first is the number of U.S. jobs supposedly lost to intellectual property theft; the second is the annual dollar cost of IP infringement to the U.S. economy.

These statistics are brandished like a talisman each time Congress is asked to step up enforcement to protect the ever-beleaguered U.S. content industry. And both, as far as an extended investigation by Ars Technica has been able to determine, are utterly bogus.

"I have said it thrice," wrote Lewis Carroll in his poem The Hunting of the Snark, "what I tell you three times is true." And by that standard, the Pythagorean Theorem is but schoolyard gossip compared with our hoary figures.

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750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy: Page 1

[Damo]

Originally Posted by solaris

Full story here:

750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy: Page 1

It seems that there are lies, dammed lies and Record Industry press releases

[Nightfly]

Originally Posted by Damo

It seems that there are lies, dammed lies and Record Industry press releases

Yes they are always telling lies to distract from the tuth. Their side has expensive lobbyist's and propaganda machines. Our side has us and a few like minded sites.But we support the people's right for drm free music, and they, well,they support themselves.

We shall prevail.

[GHERDEZ]

Originally Posted by solaris

Full story here:

750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy: Page 1

Hello everybody,

3/4 million jobs lost to piracy. If we had those jobs back in the U.S. we could get ourselves out of the rescesion... Right? (hopeful thinking?)

Well... not really. And, that number is probably a low estimate, considering that the problem of piracy is nothing new. Take the automobile and electronic industry (like SONY), for example, the japanese started out making cheap, ugly, poor-quality goods in the '50s and 60's. And, around that time the trend was aided by U.S. bussinesses that found it easier to invest in other countries for bigger profits, than invest in their own country. Slowly, but surely, we started getting ourselves out of jobs in various industries. By the early 90s (1992 I think) I remember an article on Time Magazine that anounced that asian electronic goods and japanese small cars surpased quality and sales of U.S. in 7 of the 9, or so, cathegories listed (cameras, radios, T.V.s, etc.). Later, shortly, after the fall of the communist block, the U.S. computer industry, including the one that created the APPLE computer, and other asian clones, started exporting technology to the brand new market (back in the cold war days, trading with all this countries was strictly forbiden). And, then, under the Bush administration and globalization, took the outsourcing of jobs and services trend to a new level by offering corporate exemptions to companies going overseas.
Now, against the ongoing trend, Apple, that could have created U.S. jobs by manufacturing the short-lifespan-iPods in the U.S., don't want the chinese to sell us the iPod clones (same as the iPod but without the logo and the software we all love), along with SONY the retired ex-pirate and now legit, don't want our newly found friends in the ex-soviet and other countries sell us cheaper music downloads. Because it causes you and "the industry" pain and suffering you quantify worth 1/4 trillion dollars (which is more than the gross internal product of some developed countries ).

I feel the pain.... I can't breathe.... laughing so hard...

GHERDEZ