At Least 25 Million Americans Pirate Movies 392
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.'"
Have you ever one of their union books? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's easier! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:18%? (Score:2, Interesting)
Convenience (Score:5, Interesting)
So when a blockbuster is released like LOTR the options are:
a. suffer in the theater
b. wait half a year for the DVD
c. download the torrent
Just make the first runs available for download and guaranteed the piracy problem will be minimized.
Study of the obvious... (Score:2, Interesting)
The reality is that these groups hate to admit that technology is devaluing their product. Basically, for the first time, these groups have realized that they are unable to set their price to whatever they like. Now that a consumer is able to download their product readily, their product is not as valuable as it once was. As hard as they try, this will not change because it is a structural issue...
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:18%? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? Even if there were no copyright laws and the US basically had piracy like China there would still be multi-million dollar movies made because they still make more money than not making movies.
Come to think of it... There have been a great deal of large scale movies coming out of China/Hong Kong lately. Like "The Promise" and that other that I can't remember its name right now but was made by the same group that did Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Re:18%? (Score:5, Interesting)
well, since you backed that up quite logically...
Now, if you had read the article:
" U.S. online population"
and then noticed the head line says 25 million.
Any one of these would indicate to someone of average or greater intelligence that it's not al Americans.
Based on the actual artical, 18% seem pretty reasonable a number.
Now if broadband is at 50%(adjust for easy of math), that mean 150 million americans have
broadband. Pretty cliose to 18%.
Please. Try. To. Think.
Supid Peopel (Score:2, Interesting)
make the experience better or offer an alternative (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was a kid I would go to the movies a couple times a month, now its a couple times a year. I actually have more free time to do so, but the negatives far outweigh the positives so I stay home.
Legal downloads are insane, most of them are more expensive than DVD's, have crappier resolution, and have so much drm they are basically useless. If streaming movies were available day and date with DVD or PPV releases at a cost similar to PPV it would probably go over much better.
I know Divx (Not the encoding but the format pushed by Circuit City) wasnt popular in the store, but something similar would be a pretty decent solution for downloads, a limited play but burnable download for $3-$4 sounds alot more attractive than driving to a rental place.
Whatever happened to Mark Cuban's experiment with day and date theatrical releases? It sounded like a good idea, I really dont think the theatre crowd will shrink much, the few times I go it seems its mostly teenagers there for the hang out so they will still show up. Movies that have to be experienced on the big screen will still draw crowds.
I suspect alot of the fear with day and date releases is that streaming or downloads will even the playing field, at the theatre you get anywhere from 1-20 choices where with an online service you could potentially have hundreds, suddenly art and independent films have the same marquee as the big studios which will only hurt the big studios.
Re:18%? (Score:3, Interesting)
So.. the thrill of stealing of movie? Not so. I had that thrill stealing chocolate bars when i was 13 - downloading a movie doesn't give me that thrill. Fact is, I think the only real stealing going on is what movie houses, rental places etc.. charge for movies. Especially because they're churning out crap lately.
The fact is, this 18% represents where the market needs to be. Fast, easily downloaded, watch-when-i-want movies. I would pay a nominal fee for this. The structure has to change. Going out to the movies is fine for 15 yr olds.. i'm not going there to pay nearly $50 for my wife and I to have popcorn and catch the latest flick.
Instead, i'll sit at home, comfortable (where i can pause the movie to pee or get a drink), watch movies when i want, eat what i want and enjoy high quality sound and picture with the home theatre gear i purchased with all the money i saved not going to the movies.
C'mon movie industry.. catch up. Delivering a service means giving people what they want - the people are telling you in a very obvious way now, you aren't doing that.
Here is one of the reasons (Score:5, Interesting)
With that said, I also want to state that I download video and music from the Internet all of the time. Just about everything that I download however, is not owned or copyrighted by the entertainment cartels. This is not because I have any moral qualms about doing so, rather, it is because most of the stuff produced by the entertainment cartels is pure unadultrated crap. It is a good thing that there are so many people "pirating." I hope that the piracy rate goes even higher until the entertainment cartels finally get the message. When the cartels finally accept the fact that they can no longer overcharge for their product and put unreasonable controls over how their product can be watched, they may regain some of the customers they have lost.
Much of what has been put out by the cartels these days has been little more than glorified reruns. If I want original entertainment, I go to the Internet and such sites as You Tube. The entertainment cartels will most likely never again make the kind of money that they once made now that they have competition, however people will be better off, and new producers will be able to enter the market. Yes, "piracy" is good, and no, it is NOT STEALING.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Who is the real thief now? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, piracy is stealing, but so are the studios when they steal from these guys. I doubt the Forest Gump author would shed a tear if you told him you stole 'his' movie
Re:Here is one of the reasons (Score:3, Interesting)
-lots of DVDs that you buy have those previews you can't skip (along with FBI warnings indeed)
-I hate most DVD menus with a passion
-most DVDs are overpriced (30$CDN+ is not uncommon at all)
-DVD cases take a fair amount of space when you have a lot (vs 700MB AVIs on a network share on cheap HDs), not counting you have to dust 'em (no thanks) and buy shelves (and make place for those, and my place's already full). I'd have an entire wall covered in shelving.
-lots of the stuff I like can't be bought locally (lots of old movies, like say, Louis De Funes or Terence Hill & Bud Spencer), and even some of it can't be bought at all (most of my DVDs are PAL/R2 imports!)
-renting online is cheap, but most of the titles I want are only available at different places (rent from one, cancel, rent from another, etc), and they tend to ship not in the order you want them (I rented the back to the future trilogy one time, I got the 2nd, then the 3rd, and a month later the first of the 3... heh). Also, scratched discs. And frequent trips to the (somewhat distant) post office.
-buying a DVD requires me to get ready to go shopping (get family ready, drive there in city traffic, go look for movies -- not that Best Buy has IMDB reviews on the DVD stands either), wait in line, etc, wasting a few hours in the process. Sometimes I download them faster than it would take to go buy it downtown.
Downloading them is simple (2 clicks and it's underway) - no wasting time driving/at the mall, takes basically no space, costs nothing (already paying for broadband), no work required to copy/reencode it, sits nicely on a network share (ready to be played with XBMC, load up the laptop before traveling, or any way I so please), no discs that get scratched, easy to share with friends/family, anything you could ever want (and more) is available, along with IMDB reviews, no pesky FBI warnings and annoying menus, etc. It's just SO much more convenient.
Theaters are bad in their own way too. Expensive tickets is just the beginning (although expensive tickets for the whole family quickly gets expensive -- more than the DVD would cost), but a fountain/carbonated beverage & popcorn costs even more (lots of my friends like to have some beer with their movies or such - can't have that at the Theater!) You have to wait in line a while. Then you sit in uncomfortable chairs. Watch 20 minutes of previews. People talking, cell phones, all kinds of annoyances. Can't pause the movie if you have to use the bathroom. Large screens are nice, but otherwise it SUCKS. And large screens are getting affordable: a non-HD projector that will give you a 100" picture at home can be found around 600$ locally. Compare that with (10$ for ticket, 10$ for popcorn & drink) * 4 people. It pays for itself after 8 movies only (a bit more if you pick a nicer projector). Movies don't play when you want 'em unlike at home. Lots of time wasted again (driving both ways, wait in line + previews) -- about an hour or so (almost as long as the movie is). And you have to go there when it plays (adapt your schedule). At home, I can even watch movies in my PJs.
Again, downloads are just SO much more convenient.
No wonder people are pirating.
Re:Here is one of the reasons (Score:2, Interesting)
At least, that's one of the things I think about when downloading.
Re:18%? (Score:2, Interesting)
In the last 10 years, I have only very rarely paid for music. I have also not paid for any retail DVD in almost 6 years now. One reason is because literally 99% of what is being commercially released (musically) is absolutely horrible, and I would feel ripped off if I paid a nickel for it. The numbers are movies are not quite to extreme IMO but they are still way up there.
p2p has come a very long way. I think that even a functional retard could figure out how to use bittorrent. Burning DVDs and CDs is not rocket science either. The other (and main) reason that I download music/movies (and tv shows) instead of paying for them is because its so damn easy. Even a dual layer DVD movie can be downloaded in about 6 hours, and I can even seed that up to 1.00 in just over a day on my $40/month DSL if I want to keep the mods on my favorite tracker happy. TV shows and music releases (even lossless ones, which thankfully are getting more popular all the time) usually take only a few minutes to download.
As far as quality and reliability goes, this too is almost never a problem if you know what to look for. The scene is downright anal about enforcing their quality rules. Just try watching the PRE database for 10 minutes if you have any doubt about this. Anything as minor as a typo and a release gets nuked by one of several nuke nazis. All releases need to be packaged in rar files and furthermore have an sfv for an additional level of checking of you want to be absolutely sure the release you downloadeded is pristine. I would say that out of everything I download, I have problems with corruption literally less than 1% of the time. It is simply not an issue.
As HD becomes the norm, bandwidth use and requirements will increase and that demand will be met by ISPs, just like it always has in the past. In my case, I dumped cable for DSL because even tho my cable company didn't worry about its infrastructure for 10 years, my phone company did (and they still are.)
I've got income too, it sounds like we just spend ours in different places. It also sounds like what both of us do is working for us, so its all good. After all there is something to be said for buying retail...you get nice packaging, some recourse if you get a flawed product, and you know your media will probably last a lifetime.