US government finally admits most piracy estimates are bogus
In a new report out yesterday, the government's own internal watchdog took a close look at "efforts to quantify the economic effects of counterfeit and pirated goods." After examining all the data and consulting with numerous experts inside and outside of government, the Government Accountability Office concluded (PDF) that it is "difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the economy-wide impacts."
Gee. This is surprising. The government is once again caught lying to the public to defend the special interest groups that bribed the government to pass laws for the special interest groups.
Back in 1986, the rapacious movie and music industry decided that they needed more stringent laws to protect their excessive profits. They figured out that the best way to insure continued excessive profits, is to bribe senators and congressmen to pass legislation to protect their business model.
Since at that time, there was no problem with piracy, and no proof that a problem existed, the movie and music industry did what any good government agency would do. The movie and music industry lied. But the movie and music industry did a very bad job of lying. The movie and music industry didn't even bother making up phony studies. The movie and music industry just flat out lied about the consequences of piracy on the music and movie business. Maybe next time they should use the "Global Warming" scientists who also lie outrageously, but at least take the time to create phony reports that purport to show that research was actually done.
The government didn't care about the lies, because the only thing the government cares about is getting another excuse to increase the size of government. So the government spread these lies among the agencies that needed more ammunition for size increases.
Unfortunately, some misguided politicians who didn't realize how corrupt the government is, managed to get passed the "Freedom of Information Act". When private citizens questioned the piracy loss numbers, they kept requesting more and more information until the private citizens traced the fraudulent numbers back to their source. Which was made up numbers with no relationship to reality.
So all the government can do at this time is apologize for getting caught, and promise to lie more skillfully in the future.
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