Comment Re:Fact is, they don't know. (Score 1) 480
Yes, piracy exists, yes it has an impact, but no, that impact cannot be reliably measured with any precision -- there are too many factors influencing the sales numbers you get...
Yes, humans are creating C02, yes C02 has an impact, but no, that impact cannot be reliably measured with any precision -- there are too many factors influencing the global climate...... therefore we should do nothing about global warming?
I don't mean to be glib, but your argument reminds me forcibly of anthropogenic global warming skeptics, who I think are a relatively rare breed here and would be heavily criticized for such an argument. I don't know the methodology of the study, but I think that it's unfair to presuppose that no general conclusions can be reached without being able to model every facet of a complex situation. I do not think that it is a stretch to say that piracy is causing large losses for the *AA -- maybe they deserve it, and maybe it's less than this particular study indicates, but I think that any reasonable analysis will probably come to the conclusion that they are making less money than they would without the massive piracy proliferation.
Maybe this particular study can be criticized for specific statistical failures, but I don't believe your argument that says that no meaningful data can be generated. We have to work from certain assumptions and accept that any results will have a certain margin for error, but these studies seem invaluable to meaningful discussions of piracy. I'm not sure that there's enough available information to critique this particular methodology, and I'm a little skeptical of the actual dollar amounts, but plain old common sense tells me losses are huge and I don't think it's fair to dismiss these studies simply because not all factors are known -- that's why we develop complex models and argue over the seed values.
Yes, humans are creating C02, yes C02 has an impact, but no, that impact cannot be reliably measured with any precision -- there are too many factors influencing the global climate...... therefore we should do nothing about global warming?
I don't mean to be glib, but your argument reminds me forcibly of anthropogenic global warming skeptics, who I think are a relatively rare breed here and would be heavily criticized for such an argument. I don't know the methodology of the study, but I think that it's unfair to presuppose that no general conclusions can be reached without being able to model every facet of a complex situation. I do not think that it is a stretch to say that piracy is causing large losses for the *AA -- maybe they deserve it, and maybe it's less than this particular study indicates, but I think that any reasonable analysis will probably come to the conclusion that they are making less money than they would without the massive piracy proliferation.
Maybe this particular study can be criticized for specific statistical failures, but I don't believe your argument that says that no meaningful data can be generated. We have to work from certain assumptions and accept that any results will have a certain margin for error, but these studies seem invaluable to meaningful discussions of piracy. I'm not sure that there's enough available information to critique this particular methodology, and I'm a little skeptical of the actual dollar amounts, but plain old common sense tells me losses are huge and I don't think it's fair to dismiss these studies simply because not all factors are known -- that's why we develop complex models and argue over the seed values.
