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Entertainment industry made up $250 billion/750,000 jobs losses due to piracy

Ars Technica's Julian Sanchez takes a long, investigative look at the entertainment industry's claim that piracy costs the American economy 750,000 jobs and $250 billion and discovers the truth: they made it up and repeated it until they forgot they had made it up. With Customs a dead end, we dove into press archives, hoping to find the earliest public mention of the elusive 750,000 jobs number. And we found it in?this is not a typo?1986. Yes, back in the days when "Papa Don't Preach" and "You Give Love a Bad Name" topped the charts, The Christian Science Monitor quoted then-Commerce Secretary Malcom Baldridge, trumpeting Ronald Reagan's own precursor to the recently passed PRO-IP bill. Baldridge estimated the number of jobs lost to the counterfeiting of U.S. goods at "anywhere from 130,000 to 750,000." Where did that preposterously broad range come from? As with the number of licks needed to denude a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know. Ars submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Commerce this summer, hoping to uncover the basis of Baldridge's claim?or any other Commerce Department estimates of job losses to piracy?but came up empty. So whatever marvelous proof the late secretary discovered was not to be found in the margins of any document in the government's vaults. But no matter: By 1987, that Brobdignagian statistical span had been reduced, as far as the press were concerned, to "as many as 750,000" jobs. Subsequent reportage dropped the qualifier. The 750,000 figure was still being bandied about this summer in support of the aforementioned PRO-IP bill... The number the ITC actually came up with, based on a survey of several hundred business selected for their likely reliance on IP for revenue, was $23.8 billion?the estimated losses to their respondents. That number was based on industry estimates that the authors of the study noted "could admittedly be biased and self-serving," since the firms had every incentive to paint the situation in the most dire terms as a means of spurring government action. But the figures at least appeared to be consistent and reasonable, both internally and across sectors. The $60 billion number comes from a two-page appendix, in which the authors note that it's impossible to extrapolate from a self-selecting group of IP-heavy respondents to the economy as a whole. But taking a wild stab and assuming that firms outside their sample experienced losses totaling a quarter to half those of their respondents, the ITC guessed that the aggregate losses to the economy might be on the order of "$43 billion to $61 billion." 750,000 lost jobs? The dodgy digits behind the war on piracy...

Wanted: a Prius for the delivery industry

At ?AltWheels' expo, inventors bring the hybrid mind-set to gas-guzzling shipping trucks.

Prince of Wales Tourism industry must make heroic effort to help environment

The tourism industry will have to make efforts on a "heroic scale" to minimise environmental impact the Prince of Wales said.

Europe whacks industry, blesses capture caper

De-industrialisation: It's full speed ahead Power generation, construction, coal and aluminum are the biggest losers after a day of votes by the European Parliament's environment committee yesterday. The winners on "Super Tuesday", as it was dubbed, will be investors in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and Russia.?

Drug Industry: No Cold Meds for Young Kids

Industry announces voluntary warnings after criticism from pediatricians.

Stars rock industry bosses

ROBBIE Williams, Radiohead and Kate Nash, pictured, are among Britain's top pop and rock acts who are demanding more control over their music today.

Semiconductor Industry Concerned About Wall Street Financial Crisis

In the aftermath of all the news about the U.S. credit crunch and Wall Streets financial crisis, a new report shows that sales of semiconductors grew more than 5 percent in August thanks to help from cell phone and consumer desktop and notebook sales. However, the report warns that a bailout from Congress is needed to continue the sales growth. The report precedes upcoming quarterly reports from Intel and AMD that should give better guidance. - The good news for the semiconductor industry is that sales increased more than 5 percent in August thanks to robust sales of cellular telephones, desktops and notebooks. The bad news is that Wall Streets current woes could dampen the forecast for the rest of the year, especially if consumer conf...

Verizon gets industry-specific in breach report

Researchers call out differences in types of data breaches affecting the finance, tech, retail, and food and beverage industries.

Reason #4837 Why This Industry Needs an Association

I saw this headline today at MediaPost: "Report: Affiliate Marketers Use Adware Deceptively."Great, yet another headline that paint the entire industrywith a broad brush.  Anyone not part of this industry will see the headline and confirm their misguided notions that?

As America Implodes, The Bike Industry Booms

LAS VEGAS ? It's never been a better time to be in the bicycle business, what with global warming, childhood obesity and a failing economy. The nation may be wracked by collapsing banks, foreclosed houses and a tanking economy, but there's no sign anything's amiss here at Interbike, the bike industry's annual trade show. In fact, it's party time as a perfect storm of eco-conscious consumerism, health-conscious lifestyles and wallet-sapping gas prices conspires to get people out of cars and onto bikes -- especially electric ones.  "The gas prices are the best thing that ever happened to cycling," says Kevin Menard, whose year-old custom bike business, Traitor Cycles, is thriving. "I hope they go up even more." The gargantuan trade show, and the crowd filling it, has never been bigger, organizers boast. A record 23,000 people and 750 exhibitors fill several acres of the Sands Convention Center, further proof that all is well in the bike biz. "While the economy is really sketchy right now, it's not for the bike industry," said Rich Kelly, Interbike's marketing manager."You can feel the collective buzz," a smiling Tim Blumenthal, executive director of the bicycle advocacy group Bikes Belong, says from the middle of the bustling show floor.  "It's a really, really heady time for us. This show feels very optimistic and that bucks the general economic trends. There doesn't seem to be many businesses that are thriving, but the bike business is doing very well." Cycling enjoyed a "huge spike" in interest in June when gas topped four bucks a gallon, Blumenthal says. Much of the bike industry has enjoyed double digit growth since then. Some manufacturers have seen 50 percent growth in the last quarter, and dealers can?t keep up with demand. The service sector ("tubes and lube" in industry jargon) also is booming as old bikes are hauled out of sheds and garages and dragged into shops for tune-ups and tires. A growing number of people are ditching cars in favor of bikes for commuting to work or running to the supermarket, Blumenthal says. "Cycling for recreation in America has always been big," he says. "Now we're starting to see cycling for transport." Electric bike manufacturers are particularly bullish, convinced that Americans will turn to eBikes that can be pedaled like a bike or ridden like a scooter. They've been around for a while, but the third-generation eBikes arriving in bike shops feature relatively lightweight frames and fast-charge, removable batteries. They're easy to ride, a cinch to store and dirt cheap to run. Dozens of ebike manufacturers attended Interbike for the first time, and Schwinn was there promising to have the $3,2300 Tailwind eBike it developed with Toshiba in showrooms next year. Schwinn claims the battery's good for 25 miles and can be recharged in as little as seven minutes using a commercial charger (about 30 minutes from an outlet). Schwinn's confident there's a big market for eBikes. Almost 21 million eBikes were sold worldwide in 2007, according to market researcher EBWR, and some experts predict every home in China will have one by the end of 2009."Electric bikes are a dramatically growing phenomenon within the U.S., and we intend to be a serious contender within the eBike category," Schwinn executive Bruno Maier said in a statement.Phil Herzog, marketing manager of Hebb eBikes, an eBike maker, said huge improvements in battery technology are making eBikes more efficient and easier to use than ever ? and tons of fun to ride. "The tipping point has been reached," he says. "If things keep going the way they are, everyone will have an eBike and no one will have a car any more. Anything can happen." Photo by Jim Merithew / Wired.com.