When you take into account other industries who work in and around copyright, but whose entire industry isn't based on it (such as toys and games, fabrics, TV sets, computers, etc)., these numbers grow even more staggering with more than 11.1 million workers employed altogether and $1.7 trillion added to the GDP.
The game's fabric may be damaged, but as with scars, some people just prefer it that way.
So what does Wednesday's news of a NSW police investigation into allegations of "cheating at gambling and match fixing" do to the game's fabric?
Even if the names don't surface — the government, it should be noted, has never disclosed or leaked any names in any investigation — the stain is there, indelibly embedded in the game's fabric.
Provided both men stay healthy and remain a part of the game's fabric, they will be there.
Many of them are just interesting for your general education on game dynamics theory (epic meaning, social fabric of games).
Not to get too Bart Giamatti on you, but the strength of the game's social fabric is tested.
This may be the teensiest of sub-atomic particles, but it figures mightily in two current best sellers: "The Zero Game" and "The Fabric of the Cosmos," Brian Greene's remarkably successful effort to give physics some heat.
But in that report, too, there was no mention of the brave questions he set out, about whether an imperative of the Premier League, and its sale to overseas investors, may have led to insufficient interest in the England team and by inference, the game's national fabric.
Not only does it make the game harder (the fabric makes the ball go faster, the pockets are smaller and the balls are bigger), but he casually drops it into conversation that he has personally forked out more than £1,000 to have the table upgraded to this standard.
In addition to fostering social cohesion with team competitions and peer teaching slides, our TP interactions naturally incorporated the game mechanic social fabric.
