Illegal Video Downloads Surpass Legal Alternatives 5 to 1
Written by Smaran on December 26, 2006According to the NPD Group, a consumer and retail information company, for every legally downloaded video file, there are five illegally downloaded ones on P2P networks and BitTorrent sites.
The research carried out by the group shows that 8 percent of all U.S. households (6 million) illegally downloaded at least 1 copyrighted video from a P2P network in the past 3 months, whereas only 2 percent of U.S. households purchased a video legally.
Legal video downloads took place largely on Apple’s iTunes Store with 9 in 10 downloads occurring on that site, followed by Vongo (5 percent), Movielink (3 percent) and less than 1 percent for CinemaNow.
It’s hardly surprising that almost 60 percent of all illegally downloaded video files were “adult-oriented”. TV shows were the second most popular at 20 percent, and only 5 percent were “mainstream movie content”. With regards to legal video downloads, sixty-two percent were TV shows, 24 percent were music videos and 6 percent were movies.
Russ Crupnick, the vice president of the NDP Group wants the movie industry to take the issue of illegal video downloads seriously, even though only a fraction of the video downloads were feature films, and the percentage of legal movie downloads was higher than that of illegal ones. “Even though right now the majority of downloaded video content is adult-film content, the amount of intellectual property stolen from mainstream movie studios, networks, and record labels will continue to rise, unless strong and sustained action is taken to prevent piracy,” he says.
Previously: 2006: MPAA vs. BitTorrent Sites
Next: BitTorrent Tutorial Roundup
22 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
Well - I did have a laugh when I read the title. Why? Well, if you heard 5 to 1 with The Doors you would see the humor as well =) Here’s a small quote from the lyric;
“5 to 1 baby, 1 and 5 /../ they got the guns, but we got the numbers, gonna win, yeah. We’re taking over!”
Morrison didn’t write it for filesharing, but he did mean it for the young generation against the old generation. So it seems like his lyric caught up with reality =P
Is this representative? I doubt this are trustworthy numbers, if I take a look around within my family and friends (and networks behind them) are not downloading legal movies at all, since the people who hire DVD’s copy them for others too, I cant see how they get this high numbers for downloads.
Maybe the justicedepartment in the US frigthens some users, but when I look at mayor Swam’s on torrents I see a high Swedish, Dutch and American number of people around.
well, you can’t really go off a few people you know to represent the entire world, and although this is centerd on us usage, i’m sure it’s still somewhat close on the numbers. W3orldwide, i’d guess that the overall ratio would be closer to like 8 to 1. I know several people that dont fileshare, and do their downloading via all the free and legal content, and that includes people outside the US too. Granted I doubt this survey took into account how many of thoes six million people (here) who did download the “free” version, then turned around and purchased a physical copy legally. I know for a fact that we do most all of our kid movies that way. Grab em online, and if they like it, then buy it when it comes out on dvd. I have way too many kids to go to the movies, and if I havent seen it, I wont buy it on dvd, so where does that put me in the stats? Of course i’ve never grabbed myself some porn and then ran to the video store to buy it. Usually it’s a one time viewing experiance, clean off the keyboard, and then delete it, so I’m still one of the naughty 60% when it come to that - CJ
It’s 1) easy 2) companies make a bigger profit (if I was going to buy the dvd, I’d buy it regardless of whether I d/l some crappy quality videos or not).
Yes, sure I download shows from P2P, on p2p there drm free.
Now if I’m buying shows, which I still do. I buy them on DVD I’m not going
to pay to download a show that’s wrapped in drm and I sure the hell am not
going to digitally rent videos. IE. videos that expired after a given number of
runs or on a given date. why waste the my money and bandwith on crapware.
ur all nerds
get a life
Smaran
Where’d you get your numbers? NPD says 8 % to 2 %. Wouldn’t that be 4 to 1?
Also, their press release says “8 percent (six million households) downloaded at least one digital video file (10MB or larger) from a P2P service for free in the third quarter of 2006.” Aren’t you making a stretch to state that these were all illegal downloads?
Also, NPD is comparing household not downloads - so the 4 to 1 ratio reflects households, not downloads…….
ya vdub for life
The 8 to 1 is something I can get too, I didn’t expect they did count a normal DVD in this numbers, only the ones online.
The only videos I download are fansubbed anime (besides downloading an episode of a show that I missed one week) and if I want to watch a movie with out buying it I rent it from netflix and watch it. I think online movie downloads (legal and otherwise) are crap. When it comes to the ones youv buy online you have crappy DRM and with both types you don’t get the quality or the extras that DVDs have.
[quote comment="32769"]well, you can’t really go off a few people you know to represent the entire world, and although this is centerd on us usage, i’m sure it’s still somewhat close on the numbers. W3orldwide, i’d guess that the overall ratio would be closer to like 8 to 1. I know several people that dont fileshare, and do their downloading via all the free and legal content, and that includes people outside the US too. Granted I doubt this survey took into account how many of thoes six million people (here) who did download the “free” version, then turned around and purchased a physical copy legally. I know for a fact that we do most all of our kid movies that way. Grab em online, and if they like it, then buy it when it comes out on dvd. I have way too many kids to go to the movies, and if I havent seen it, I wont buy it on dvd, so where does that put me in the stats? Of course i’ve never grabbed myself some porn and then ran to the video store to buy it. Usually it’s a one time viewing experiance, clean off the keyboard, and then delete it, so I’m still one of the naughty 60% when it come to that - CJ[/quote]
Does anyone know how the statistics compare when it comes to music? I’d like to know if more people find it acceptable to illegally download music than movies.
I mean if you’ve taken that first step why not go the next? It’s just another form of media.
In other words, why doesn’t it seem like the movie industry is having as many problems in this day in age?
[quote comment="32835"]ur all nerds
get a life[/quote]
hi
Really people that have there comps plugged into their high def TVs don’t wanna watch super low res versions.?.?.
GO figure….
It seems like the services mentionned above for legal downloads aren’t available in Canada and or come with DRM of some sort. Maybe if the big billion dollar industry could provide services comparable to the illegal sharing that everyone seems to love. Then everyone would stop complaining. I want my movies DRM FREE and in avi format. Thanks.
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