James Delahunty
16 Jun 2007 16:54
According to NBC/Universal general counsel Rick Cotton, today's society is wasting its time battling crimes such as home burglary, bank robbery and fraud. The incredible statement was made to suggest that more effort should be put in to battling piracy due to the financial damage it does to the entertainment industry.
"Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned," Cotton said. "If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year."
The argument is hardly convincing, especially since the industry's own nit-picked reports claim much less than "hundreds of billions of dollars" in losses per year. For example, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) cites a study from Smith Barney in 2005 that puts their annual loss at less than $6 billion.
Also, you might have a tough time finding an example of how somebody was stabbed or shot during an intellectual property crime, whereas people are often attacked and even killed while being burgled and bank robbers do shoot hostages and employees. Perhaps somebody should suggest to Cotton that protecting against the theft of physical property and of course, protecting human life, is more important than intellectual property protection.
Source:
Ars Technica