"Late 1930s" is not wrong. In fact, it IS accurate. Of course, it is less specific than a precise date, but it is not wrong. In fact, they might have used it because there was some concerns about using a date like september 1st or 3rd which are in contention (did it start when Germany attacked or when the Allies declared war?). So in fact, Late 1930s could be more accurate than a specific date for some people.

So, I do not understand your concerns. If I did something on september 8th 2008 and I refer to it as : "Last year", or "last september", am I wrong? Didn't think so.

I'd understand if the entry said : On "August 9th" or an obvious innacurate date, but it's not the case. You're obviously grasping at straws in hope of making an attack on Wikipedia or something, because I cannot understand your argument. I can see where you want to go, but it is based on a false premise and puts in doubt your motives.

ok, 6.7m from 7m, bad rounding.
11.6% fudged to 16.3%. Bad.
The estimate of internet access is a valid statistic tho and doesn't impact the study (but do read below!)
If I did my calculation right, they estimated 40m have internet access on 60m total pop.

So, in the end, lets use the 11.6% of 40m. instead of 16.3%.

If you do the math, the 6.7m falls to around 4.6m.

6.7m to 4.6m. Ok, they fudged the data, true. But 6.7m and 4.6m is pretty much the same order of magnitude for me is it? Far from the "136" people from TFS.

In fact, unless they only surveyed people WITH internet access, the sample is big enough to compare to the WHOLE population. That means they downsized the resulting pool even more by using the estimate number of people with internet access instead of the total population.

If you don't understand, let me explain: you have a population of 100, and 60 have access to the net. If you survey 10 random sample, about 6 of them will have internet access, so a *maximum* of 6 will admit to filesharing (since the 4 other don't have access). The % of internet access is already represented in the sample, no need to reduce it even further.

So lets take 11.6% of 60m instead. Ohhhh... 6.96m!! Thats pretty much 7m.

Now, the ONLY criticism is that filesharing doesn't automaticall equal piracy. However, you have to admit, I doubt 50% of people who fileshare do it totally legally. Event then, we'd go from 7m to 3.5m, that's still the same order of magnitude to me.

The other assumption is that filesharing implies internet access. Unless most of them fileshare at their grandparents or friends' house, I doubt this is a very big issue.

Hey, I hate the MPAA and BPI as much as the next guy, but the stats are there. You cannot dismiss the stats juste because you don't like the result.

Now, however... this is the most important part: Does the result means anything beside a number of filesharer?!?! that's something else entirely! You can make that result say anything you want, it's just a stat afterall (albeit accurate). Some will say "that's ONLY 7m" other "wow, 7m, that's huge!", etc. Like you say, that's how you lie with stats. I'm pretty confident that the stat is accurate, but what does it means? That's the thing we should talk about.