An 18-month study completed in 2005 by LEK Consulting has found that lost sales from piracy of DVD movies and downloads totals some $6.1 billion a year, a figure 75 percent higher than previous industry estimates.

Although the study was completed some months ago, its results have been withheld due to inter-studio debate. According to the article, the MPAA commissioned the study to provide evidence of how much money the studios were losing to piracy every year, but some executives were alarmed at how high the figures turned out to be. The numbers raised fears that releasing the information would only serve to show how ineffective the industry's ant-piracy efforts have been. The MPAA has yet to comment publicly on the study.

The LEK's survey methodology differed from previous MPAA efforts, and reportedly shows Mexico is the largest market for pirated movies, rather than Russia or China. The study was also the first to attempt to account for Internet-related losses, and finds studios lose the most money in the home video market rather than theatrical distribution.

In addition, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) will now be fighting illegal file sharing that is taking place on university LANs.

As such, the RIAA and the MPAA have sent letters to presidents of 40 universities in the US informing them of piracy problems on their schools' local area networks and asking for immediate action to stop it and take steps to end the theft of music, movies and other copyright content.

The organizations say that college students are more and more using programs such as Direct Connect (DC++), MyTunes and OurTunes to trade music across their schools' networks without having to send or receive files across the public Internet.

According to a release issued by the two associations, campus LANs provide a way to engage in illegal file sharing and eliminates the danger of being caught.

"Piracy on campuses has been a concern for quite a while, and we have been actively engaged in a number of efforts with universities to get the word out to students," said Gayle Osterberg, an MPAA spokeswoman. "This particular trend or growing problem is something that is a more recent development, and we are working on all fronts to stay on top of all means of piracy and addressing them." Osterberg said that the advocacy groups recognize that they have to address all forms of illegal file sharing and to be proactive in trying to stop it.

The new intiative follows several other moves the organizations have made to try to keep students from using their schools' networks to trade music and other copyrighted content. Some opponents to the increasing legislation and measures to fight intellectual property on the Internet feel that Thursday's action by the MPAA and RIAA shows that their strategy of suing file swappers isn't working.

Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) mentioned that a very similar letter was sent to universities about Napster in 1999 or 2000. Von Lohmann said the EFF's answer is to encourage the MPAA and RIAA and universities to work out a system where the schools pay licensing fees and "let the students do what they're going to do anyway."

Story filed 08.05.06