Oops! MPAA Admits they were wrong in movie download study

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) admitted Wednesday that their study on illegal movie downloads had a serious flaw.

In a 2005 study, the MPAA accused college students of being the cause of 44% of illegal movie downloads, mostly because of easy access to high bandwidth networks at the colleges. The MPAA used the study to put pressure on colleges to stop illegal filesharing and back a legislation that would do the same.

But now, the MPAA says that due to human error, they got it wrong. Now college students are only responsible for 15% of illegal downloading, which the MPAA is quick to say is still significant and still justifies the crackdowns schools have been taking against illegal downloads.

An Associated Press article points out that about 80% of college students live off campus, so college campuses are most likely liable for only about 3% of losses, so the crackdowns won’t and haven’t really been working.

The MPAA has said that it will hire a third party to re-validate the math of the study.

Read [Globe and Mail.com]
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