Filesharing students may not be to blame

Although not directly related to music, the implications to filesharing could be huge. Hollywood has tended to blame students filesharing as the root of the entire movie industry’s problems. In a report in 2005, it was asserted that 44% of the industry’s losses was down to filesharing by college students. As if having the RIAA on their backs wasn’t bad enough, the MPAA was also at it — and still is to a large extent.

However, it turns out that students filesharing isn’t as big a problem as the MPAA had first thought. Apparently, the MPAA got its numbers wrong. Students filesharing now only account for 15% of the industry’s losses.

Of course, filesharing is evil to the MPAA, so those guys are still adamant that 15% is a significant amount. Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, said that he suspects that students filesharing accounts for only about 3% of the movie-industry’s losses.

The theory put forward by the MPAA was that if campus filesharing could be eradicated, somehow the entire movie industry would be rejuvenated. Obviously, this is not the case.

Maybe the RIAA will start analyzing it’s figures and ease off on suing students who indulge in filesharing. We can but hope.

Related Articles