On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, der.hans wrote:

> $35 billion? industry vs. sector?
>
> A couple of films this year have made over $100 million in the opening
> weekend. Spider Man has over $300 million in the .us thus far.
>
> Hell, film, tv, music, and sports all probably top $35 billion on their own.
> Granted, there's a lot of cross-over because sports get a lot of the money
> from tv, but I find it hard to believe that the 'entertainment sector' is
> only $35 billion.

You are rightly incredulous.

This is excerpted from:
http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000008.html

The census report I'm wagering that was used to
generate this figure is here (Census through 2000
for Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation Services):
http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/sas71-2.pdf

Line 71 is arts, entertainment and recreation.
Line 711 is probably where Cory Doctorow's number
originates. 38 billion in 2000, and it has probably
dropped since then. Spectator sports account for 17
of that 38.

However, if you poke around a bit more you find
that television, radio, movies, and music are
actually not in entertainment. They are in
Information Sector Services.

http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/sas51-2.pdf

Books:          25 billion
Magazines:      39 billion
Movies:         53 billion
Broadcast TV:   38 billion
Cable:          67 billion
Recorded Music: 12 billion
Radio:          15 billion
Software:       88 billion
IT Services:    76 billion

(I don't have the will to wade through the
manufacturing reports to invalidate the 600 billion
number)

But I digress.

It's propaganda.

It's not supposed to be true.

Truth is what civilized, respectable humans use to
communicate with each other. Propaganda is what
the RIAA, MPAA, EFF, and FSF use to affect the
political process. Successful lobbyists do not
become successful by being civilized and respectable.
Likewise they are not likely to blur the distinction
between propaganda and truth.

I suspect that this constant immersion in lies is
what ultimately turns once honorable persons, who
set out to serve and protect, into corrupt
politicians. They play the game for so long that
they forget that there once was an underlying
truth for which they were fighting.

Is this good? Is it fair? Is it right? Of course
not. But to me, that is not sufficient reason to
turn my back on the process and let the MPAA and
RIAA take away my right to own and operate a
general purpose computer running a Free operating
system.

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 "This time around, everything not forbidden is mandatory."
 "...Congress is willing to butcher the $600 billion tech industry
  to feed the $35 billion entertainment sector..."
 http://www.eff.org/blogs/bpdg/
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