AfterDawn: News

SMAIS exaggerates effects of Icelandic piracy

After the recent raid in Iceland, the local branch of MPA, SMAIS, has made various statements that are either highly exaggerated or completely false. They have, for instance, stated that: "[On this 100 person Direct Connect hub] we estimate our loss to be around $4,5 million."

Hagstofan, the national statistical institute of Iceland, has gathered detailed consumer statistics for years, and their records show that while the cinema attendance and video rentals decreased slightly, the sale of both VHS and DVD movies has grown. In addition there was a record breaking increase in the sales of domestic CDs.



The Hagstofan specialist states that "Downloads on the Internet don't have a noticeable effect on the sales or attendance," and that "Those that claim that decrease is due to Internet downloading, should do so very carefully."

There is growing concern in Iceland about the legal issues surrounding the raid. It's uncertain if the police had the right to execute surveillance and wiretapping for two years, and if the measures taken in general were excessive.

Thanks to Joelocal for using our news submit to let us know of the recent developments!

Written by: Jari Ketola @ 12 Oct 2004 10:25

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• 3 comments

• Dela

  Very interesting. It also exposes the general lies told by the Movie and Recording Industry to justify their actions online.

  12.10.2004 11:03 #1

• lvd

  Sounds familiar. When sharereactor was shut down by the authorities in Switzerland, the anti-piracy organisation there leaked to the media a bunch of negative analysis data they did on the site and about its owner. An article appeared in a newspaper saying that the owner was raking in 76,000 Euros per month, 2,000 from donations alone. The reportedly told the police a figure more like 15,000. Obviously they knew they were lying at some point, but continued to spread false figures. I guess the MPA and its branches don't have much of a problem with making up numbers arbitrarily.

  12.10.2004 11:12 #2

• joelocal

  What might be interesting to note is that that each year, on average, every Icelander rents 10 VHS or DVD titles from videorentals and goes 5 times to the cinema (Statistics Iceland). That's double the cinema attendance of other Nordic countries and three times the rentals.

  13.10.2004 08:20 #3