Skype call.
We mentioned how music and film seem to be the dominant sources for research into infringement and illicit exchange of copyright content. We believe this underscores the issue of whether research is as much about resources (financial and personnel) as policy making and lobbying. We also noted the number of trade bodies that admitted they were unable to devote the resources needed to come up with kind of research provided by MPAA and also noted cross-sectorial support for certain research papers.
intelligence that is not for public dissemination. MPAA mentioned the film industry devotes a lot of resources to dealing with the day- to-day issues of managing rights in highly contested environments like the Web.
There are different types of sources for research in this area including consumer surveys and empirical data about website traffic and content consumption. Film and music industries adopt very similar approaches to research by using surveys (e.g. Ipsos), aggregating online website traffic data using data sources by website traffic measurement firms like Alexa, Comscore, Hitwise, Nielsen and Compete, and relying on other data sources such as Movie Labs. 290 We mentioned our review of the Net-Names/Envisional research (2011) sponsored by NBC- Universal that we felt was a good example of quality research with clear methods, with some limitations. The report, entitled “Sizing The Piracy Universe” 291 has since been updated and
expanded, published in September 2013.
We discussed the recent Ofcom research and we mentioned positive aspects of its methodology, including its acknowledgement that an online survey, indeed any single methodology, was unlikely to provide the kind of rigorous analysis we are looking for. However, there is also room for more segmentation analysis to provide more meaningful insights, and this appears to be in evidence in the latest iteration of its research.
We mentioned our recent dialogue with BitTorrent Inc (BTI) and how it has announced some very critical data on the 2012 levels of usage of BTI protocol. We discussed different ways to interrogate BitTorrent and how surprising it is that BTI could identify the types of content being ‘shared’, given its oft-repeated claim that it “cannot track user behaviour.” MPAA suggested BTI might monitor the content based on file names (which is what others do). But we believe even this cannot explain how it knows the content of each bundle, begging the question of whether it is using DPI to do so. MPAA recommended we look at an Australian study on DPI.
A discussion then took place about the standard survey approach and we argued that, based on our research to date, we were leaning towards tools that measured ‘observed’ behaviour as being more robust and representative of consumer behaviour. However, MPAA noted that while survey data has limitations, data provided by online measurement panels (e.g. Nielsen) also must be used carefully; for example, a website visit is not equivalent to having consumed or downloaded the content. 292The MPAA does aim to use and incorporate different methodologies to arrive at findings and we indicated this was something we had noticed in the Kantar/Ofcom study methodology.
290 http://www.movielabs.com
291 http://www.netnames.com/digital-piracy-sizing-piracy-universe
292 For example, the content industries and others have raised concerns about the methodology used in the February 2013 JRC/EC research based on Nielsen clickstream data, given that it is not structured to provide a causal answer, only a positively biased correlation. There is no natural experiment in the study and the controls used are inadequate (in fact, the more controls are added, the weaker the results, suggesting if the controls were fully adequate, the results would be different). Some further concerns have been raised in the academic paper “Using data in decision-making” (http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/21365/) as well as by IFPI (http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/ IFPI-response-JRC-study_March2013.pdf) and HADOPI (http://www.futureofcopyright.com/home/blog- post/2013/04/19/hadopi-research-challenges-european-commissions-report-on-the-effects-of-music-piracy. html).
MPAA also recommended we get in touch with the Industry Trust (actual name is Industry Trust For Intellectual Property Awareness) 293Key partners for IT are FACT and AFIP.
At the end, we discussed Sandtable’s project for the MPAA and The Industry Trust, as suggested by the BVA. The Sandtable SIM (or Simulation) used a concept and approach previously used to investigate and model efforts to reduce smoking among young people, with a focus on the socially determined (e.g. peer pressure) aspects of the problem. We mentioned our concerns about its suitability for our review given it is a ‘model’ for predicting whether consumer behaviour can be affected by outside factors, rather than a tool to measure actual consumer behaviour. However, it provides insights that allow the industry to preview the effect of different approaches. We discussed the possibility that the kind of robust and rigorous assessment of piracy and counterfeiting we are looking at might best be conducted by a U.K. government agency such as the IPO or OFCOM to counter the belief that data had been skewed by vested interests. Industry’s role would then be about feeding into the IPO assessment the kind of market intelligence data it routinely generates for its members (e.g. FACT’s data).