Suppressed Report Shows Pirates Are Good Customers 291
An anonymous reader writes "The movie and music industry think pirates are criminals and parasites who cost both industries billions of dollars in lost sales. In order to prove this fact a number of studies have been commissioned to help demonstrate the effect a pirate has on sales of entertainment. GfK Group is one of the largest market research companies in the world and is often used by the movie industry to carry out research and studies into piracy. Talking to a source within GfK who wished to remain anonymous, Telepolis found that a recent study looking at pirates and their purchasing activities found them to be almost the complete opposite of the criminal parasites the entertainment industry want them to be. The study states that it is much more typical for a pirate to download an illegal copy of a movie to try it before purchasing. They are also found to purchase more DVDs than the average consumer, and they visit the movie theater more, especially for opening weekend releases which typically cost more to attend."
Re:First to say (Score:5, Informative)
It's a lie. "Not publishing a report" is still a lie. When you testify before congress that you are presenting facts revealed by studies and you omit anything that you want to conceal, it's perjury. "... to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth..." I'd say that's a violation of the oath they take prior to giving testimony to not at least make available ALL information collected as that fits within the "...the whole truth..." part of the swearing in.
I'd like to see a congressional investigation into the matter -- not that I expect one to happen -- just that I'd like to see one. And who knows, perhaps if some government scandal comes up, they will need "some distraction" to draw the public's attention away from themselves. This might be a good one though it might result in lower campaign contributions.
Re:No big deal (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First to say (Score:2, Informative)
Are we really that dense slashdot? It didn't say "this is perjury" it gave an analogy of how serious some contexts consider lie of omission (specifically the context of a court of law). The original post was saying the act wasn't the same as lying and the response simply pointed out that in some contexts it is considered equivalent to a lie. I'm pretty sure it's time for you to pull out a Hitler analogy to prove you're point though so I'm sure I'm wasting my time trying to explain the use of logical constructs and analogy.
Re:First to say (Score:5, Informative)
To play devil's advocate, they didn't exactly lie here. This "GfK" just didn't publish a report that came to the opposite conclusions they were paid to reach.
This has been widely discussed in scientific circles, too, including here on /.. Organizations that fund research often let the researchers know what results are expected, and if the science shows otherwise, the reports are very often suppressed. This is considered a major problem in a number of scientific fields.
It's especially problematic that "no significance" reports are often suppressed. It can be useful to know that X and Y have no relation. But, for example, drug manufacturers don't usually like to hear that their profitable "miracle drug" actually has no effect on the conditions that they claim it will cure. Admitting this publicly means they'll no longer get income from the suckers who have been buying the "drug" to cure their condition.
In general, it may be true that not telling everything you know isn't exactly a lie. But that's not exactly what's going on here. Continuing to say something is true when you've done studies showing that it's false is definitely a lie. This is what companies do when they suppress "no significant effect of X on Y" results, and it's what the **AAs do when they claim something they don't like is hurting sales when their study shows that it doesn't. It's a lie regardless of whether the claimed "piracy" actually helps or has no effect on sales.