Piracy costs $1.37 billion/6,100 jobs a year: AFACT
A new report commissioned by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has found that the economic impact of film piracy equated to $1.37 billion and 6,100 jobs lost over a 12-month period.
“The IPSOS research tells us that movie theft has a destructive impact not just on the film industry, but the economic damage also reverberates through our entire community,” said AFACT executive director Neil Gane. The announcement was made on the set of Stephan Elliott’s upcoming comedy A Few Best Men in Sydney. Producer Antonia Barnard said she hoped that, when released, “people will choose to see the film as it is intended to be seen – on the big screen –or that they choose to buy or rent a DVD legally rather than viewing it online via illegal downloads”.
The main findings were:
1. Allowing for effects on other industries, $1.37 billion in revenue and 6,100 jobs were lost across the entire economy.
2. Tax losses to movie piracy amounted to $193 million.
3. Direct consumer spending losses to the movie industry, ie. cinema owners, local distributors, producers and retailers amounted to $575 million.
4. A third of the Australian adult population has participated in some form of movie theft (downloading, streaming, buying counterfeit, borrowing unauthorized, burning).
5. 92 million pirated movies were estimated to have been viewed or obtained within this period.
Source: AFACT
The telephone survey of 3,500 adults was undertaken by IPSOS and Oxford Economics during July and August 2010, and it’s the first of its kind since 2005.
It would be nice if we lived in a perfect world but we don’t. Piracy is a fact of life, get used to it because it is not about to change.
People get upset about film and music piracy. Well if the price of buying these items were the same price as any other country and not double the price like they are in Australia you might see a lot less piracy because people could afford it.
Not always but much of the time piracy is brought about by greed.
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“Hello it’s 2010 and after years of Copyright agencies suing, fines and other legal actions, I am call you on the phone to ask if you were ever involved in Copyright Infringement (please note Piracy is the act of looting on the high seas) just tell me all the details over the phone, really nothing will happen!!!”
Can this truly be a serious report…AFACT is a studio driven organization to retain the value of their products. I am not against them I work in the production industry but when reports talk about 50,000 people impacted they are talking all media positions not just movie production (they could even infer allied industries like video shops).
They even added a word to the copyright act quotes…”Piracy”
This I guess is to confuse or create a false sense of Copyright Infringement offenses leading up to the governments review of the laws.
They (AFACT and supporting studios) should just be honest (oh how about studios offering a FULL FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE?) about it is something they feel is profit loss, and they are trying to curb it!
Review this comment about the report:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/efa-to.....309884.htm
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The fact of the matter is a greedy few treat this Island nation of ours like a personal money pit surrounded by protectionism left right and center and scream blue murder when the citizens get sick of having to wait for something to hit their TV screens or to rent or buy something and reach for the Vuze button. I mean we’re living in the Global Age, but still we have to wait and wait for content and the mothers of invention and licensing to trickle our way. The fact of the matter is people are sick to death of being told what they can see, espeically when and why..
If I look at my DVD collection most of the titles I first previewed on pirated DVD’s and then when I came to appreciate the movie or series I went and bought the box set of Deadwood or The Wire or Mad Men, if that makes me a patch wearing pirate with a wooden leg and a parrot shitting on my shoulder, then call me Mister Fancy dress…don’t even get me started about my fellow Somalian hoods ..who all do the same. Piracy is a great marketing exercise..its the Elephant in the room nobody wants to discuss…start delivering platforms that I can subscribe to and download from and I’ll do it…but when I want to watch something…I don’t want to wait…I mean we do live in these amazingly technologically sophisticated times…so Lawyers get your shit together stop bitching get on with it…oh I forgot..there’s a buck in bitching about licensing agreements..how rude of me to think licensing muppets had our best interests at heart..so sorry
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iiNet chief executive, Michael Malone, said the case had so far cost his company $6.5 million. “All this legal action hasn’t stopped one customer from [illegally] downloading in Australia,” Mr Malone said said outside court this afternoon.
“We urge the Australian film industry to address the growing demand for studio content to be delivered in a timely and cost effective manner to consumers and we remain eager to work with them to make this material available legitimately,” he said in a statement.
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