Patent Law

Tim Lee on questionable copyright statistics

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

If you've paid attention to copyright debates in recent years, you've probably seen advocates for more restrictive copyright laws claim that "counterfeiting and piracy" cost the US economy as much as $250 billion. When pressed, those who make these kinds of claims are inevitably vague about exactly where these figures come from. For example, I contacted Thomas Sydnor, the author of the paper I linked above, and he was able to point me to a 2002 press release from the FBI, which claims that "losses to counterfeiting are estimated at $200-250 billion a year in U.S. business losses."

Now, if someone can review the numbers proposed by Bessen and Meurer....

Full post as published by IPBiz on November 10, 2008 (boomark / email).