Actually I’ve noticed that they frequently take that a step even further by then inflating that number. So they end up with numbers that are larger than the entire revenue from films/music/games/whatever. So it’s not just a stupid figure, but an insane one.
Except that they can’t, because there really aren’t such a range of figures. The best anyone has is pretty much wild speculation (though some of the speculation is more wild than others). The whole area is pretty under-studied, and what studies have been done, don’t tend to even remotely support industry claims, so they’re best off sticking with making up their own numbers from thin air.
