The US Department of Government Accountability Office just published an authoritative report on piracy and counterfeited goods entitled "Observations on Efforts to Quantify the Economic Effects of Counterfeit and Pirated Goods". This must by, finally, the proof how damaging piracy is to people wanting to make a living from Copyright, Patents and Trademarks. Just skimming the report shows two important things.

One: "Three Widely Cited Estimates Sourced to U.S. Agencies Cannot Be Substantiated" — the FBI estimate of a $200-$250 billion loss to counterfeiting per annum to U.S. businesses; the CBP estimate of $200 billion/750,000 jobs loss per year; the $3 billion annual loss in sales allegedly calculated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Second: Just over half of seized counterfeit goods (58 %, in terms of domestic value) are not pharmaceuticals or media, but handbags, clothes and footwear. Pharmaceuticals are 5 % and media a mere 3 % in the 5 year period of 2004-2009 (DHS figures).

So essentially the claims, mainly of the recording industry, about the amount of losses due to piracy are exaggerations or simply lies. And who wanted to know that, could read it in arstechnica already over 2 years ago.