Appeared in the Toronto Star on June 1, 2009 as High-speed Net Expensive, Slow: Report In recent months, much of the discussion about high-speed Internet service in Canada has focused on two key issues – net neutrality and the need to bring broadband access to the remaining underserved areas in […]
Post Tagged with: "OECD"
The Conference Board of Canada’s Deceptive, Plagiarized Digital Economy Report
The Conference Board of Canada bills itself as "the foremost, independent, not-for-profit applied research organization in Canada. Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests." These claims should take a major hit based on last week's release of a deceptive, plagiarized report on the digital economy that copied text from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (the primary movie, music, and software lobby in the U.S.), at times without full attribution. The report itself was funded by copyright lobby groups (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, Copyright Collective of Canada which represents U.S. film production) along with the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. The role of the Ontario government obviously raises questions about taxpayer dollars being used to pay for a report that simply recycles the language of a U.S. lobby group paper.
Start with the press release promoting the study, titled "Canada Seen as the File Swapping Capital of the World" which claims:
As a result of lax regulation and enforcement, internet piracy appears to be on the increase in Canada. The estimated number of illicit downloads (1.3 billion) is 65 times higher than the number legal downloads (20 million), mirroring the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s conclusion that Canada has the highest per capita incidence of unauthorized file-swapping in the world.
While the release succeeded in generating attention, the report does not come close to supporting these claims. The headline-grabbing claim of 1.3 billion unauthorized downloads relies on a January 2008 Canadian Recording Industry Association press release. That release cites a 2006 Pollara survey as the basis for the statement. In other words, the Conference Board relies on a survey of 1200 people conducted more than three years ago to extrapolate to a claim of 1.3 billion unauthorized downloads (the survey itself actually ran counter to many of CRIA's claims). The OECD study that the Conference Board says found the highest per capita incidence of unauthorized file sharing in the world did not reach that conclusion. The report – which is based on six year old data that is now out-of-date – was limited to the 30 OECD countries (not the world) and did not make any comment or determination on unauthorized activity.
That is just the press release – the report itself is even worse as it is largely a copy of the IIPA 2008 Special 301 Report on Canada. Given the lack of attribution in some instances, this work would face possible plagiarism sanctions in almost any academic environment. Even where there is attribution, the chart below demonstrates that the report simply adopts the IIPA positions and language as its own.
The Conference Board of Canada’s Deceptive, Plagiarized Digital Economy Report
The Conference Board of Canada bills itself as "the foremost, independent, not-for-profit applied research organization in Canada. Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests." These claims should take a major hit based on last week's release of a deceptive, plagiarized report on the digital economy that copied text from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (the primary movie, music, and software lobby in the U.S.), at times without full attribution. The report itself was funded by copyright lobby groups (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, Copyright Collective of Canada which represents U.S. film production) along with the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. The role of the Ontario government obviously raises questions about taxpayer dollars being used to pay for a report that simply recycles the language of a U.S. lobby group paper.
Start with the press release promoting the study, titled "Canada Seen as the File Swapping Capital of the World" which claims:
As a result of lax regulation and enforcement, internet piracy appears to be on the increase in Canada. The estimated number of illicit downloads (1.3 billion) is 65 times higher than the number legal downloads (20 million), mirroring the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s conclusion that Canada has the highest per capita incidence of unauthorized file-swapping in the world.
While the release succeeded in generating attention, the report does not come close to supporting these claims. The headline-grabbing claim of 1.3 billion unauthorized downloads relies on a January 2008 Canadian Recording Industry Association press release. That release cites a 2006 Pollara survey as the basis for the statement. In other words, the Conference Board relies on a survey of 1200 people conducted more than three years ago to extrapolate to a claim of 1.3 billion unauthorized downloads (the survey itself actually ran counter to many of CRIA's claims). The OECD study that the Conference Board says found the highest per capita incidence of unauthorized file sharing in the world did not reach that conclusion. The report – which is based on six year old data that is now out-of-date – was limited to the 30 OECD countries (not the world) and did not make any comment or determination on unauthorized activity.
That is just the press release – the report itself is even worse as it is largely a copy of the IIPA 2008 Special 301 Report on Canada. Given the lack of attribution in some instances, this work would face possible plagiarism sanctions in almost any academic environment. Even where there is attribution, the chart below demonstrates that the report simply adopts the IIPA positions and language as its own.
Report Shows Canada Declining As Source of P2P Infringement Claims
BayTSP, a U.S. firm that identifies and tracks copyright content on behalf of major movie and music interests, has released its annual report on online trends (the study is not online, but they did send me a copy and Ars Technica, Torrent Freak, and P2PNet have reports). The report is […]
OECD Releases Latest Broadband Rankings
The OECD is out with its latest broadband rankings – the CBC notes that Canada ranks tenth overall (first for cable broadband, but that is pretty irrelevant), one of the few countries without an unlimited plan from a major provider, and one of the most expensive broadband pricing relative to […]
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