At Least 25 Million Americans Pirate Movies

ThinSkin writes "Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past, according to a telephone and online study of 2,600 Americans. A typical movie downloader is 29 years of age, while 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female. Kaan Yigit, director of the study, observes, 'There is a Robin Hood effect — most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don't think of movie downloading as a big deal. The current crop of 'download to own' movie services and the new ones coming into the market will need to offer greater flexibility of use, selection and low prices to convert the current users to their services — otherwise file-sharing will continue to thrive.'"

hey

[Anonymous Coward]

Apocalypto.DVDSCR.XviD-iMBT
Employee.Of.The.Month.DVDRip.XviD-iMBT

Just downloaded them last night ;)

Re:18%?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think 18% sounds too high. I think you overestimate the intelligence of the average US movie-watcher.

25 Million Pirate Movies??

[siufish]

and I've only seen one last year! Where can I find the others? :)

That's not all...

[TobyRush]

Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past

...and roughly 34 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded the first few minutes of a full-length movie, then cancelled that download to try to find a faster one.

Hollywood constantly loses money

[Generic Guy]

When I found out that Hollywood regularly adjusts their accounting practices [wikipedia.org] to show their movies all lose money, I decided to adjust my own checkbook to show that I paid for all the movies on my computer.

Numbers dont lie

[bedonnant]

A typical movie downloader is 29 years of age, while 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female

I am glad the summary thought best to inform us that all that are not male, are female.

movie pirate

[Quick Sick Nick]

That's right, I'm a movie pirate! And I like movies rated ARRRRRRR!!!

Re:18%?

[Swift2001]

Oh, broadband isn't necessary. I downloaded a movie at 56k. I downloaded one movie, and it took me most of 2006.

Re:18%?

[Random Destruction]

Its true, ladies like 'bad boys'

Trust me, fire up bittorrent, and you'll become a sex machine.

Re:18%?

[Robber Baron]

You're saying that half of all broadband users are capable of downloading a bit torrent client, running it, finding divx, installing it, and getting the movie to run... sure, they could be downloading quicktime movies or WMV files, but any of these combinations is equally challenging to your mom, your grandpa, and your brother in law- 1 person out of 5 is a hell of a lot of people.

Umm...it's not that hard...

Step 1: Download Bitlord.
Step 2: Download VLC Media Player
Step 3: Visit Mininova and find a tracker.
Step 4: Open file with VLC and enjoy.

But still I think your right. It's probably not 18% of all citizens, probably more like 18% of all households with broadband.

From the "We Are Watching You Department"

[LifesABeach]

"...while 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female..."; There, we have it, Hermaphrodites are honest folks.

Re:Here is one of the reasons

[Sj0]

Yeah, I find it absolutely HILARIOUS that I hadn't been threatened by the FBI until recently, when my family got together and rented some DVDs.

Think about it: When you download a movie, you get a movie. When you rent or buy a movie, you get threatened by the FBI and Interpol. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife and sell it to dumb tourists.