I really need to watch TED talks more often. Here, science fiction author Robert Reid delves a little into the mathematical claims of the movie and music industries when they rail against piracy.
I always love when big numbers are thrown about, and no one questions them at all. I remember the Direct Marketing Association’s fierce opposition to the Federal Do Not Call List, on the basis that it would cost the economy something like two million jobs. A job hit of that magnitude, at once, would be an economic calamity of historic proportions, but that number just sat out there. Weird, huh?
