SecureU - Illegal Downloading at Colleges Vastly Overestimated

Published: 01/22/08

Illegal Downloading at Colleges Vastly Overestimated
From "MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study" by: Justin Pope, Associated Press: The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has acknowledged an error in its 2005 study that claimed that 44 percent of industry losses came from college students illegally downloading movies on college networks--a study that the MPAA used to put pressure on colleges and Congress. Now, MPAA says a "human error" caused it to overestimate the number, which it says is actually 15 percent. The association says this percentage is still unacceptable and justifies a substantial anti-file-sharing effort by colleges and universities.

Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, says that the association is not factoring out the many students who do not use a college network. Luker estimates that the percentage of revenue lost from campus networks is probably around 3 percent, and he says the new figures indicate that "any solution on campus will have only a small impact on the industry itself." Meanwhile, American Council on Education Vice President Terry Hartle says the mistake by MPAA shows that college campuses have been unfairly singled out by the entertainment industry: "Illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing is a society-wide problem. Some of it occurs at colleges and universities but it is a small portion of the total."

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