More Than 25 Million Americans Pirate Movies
Written by Smaran on January 25, 2007Digital Life America, a unit of the Solutions Research Group, has found that out of the 32 million Americans who have downloaded at least 1 movie from the Internet, 80 percent have done so over P2P.
According to the group, 25.6 million Americans have illegally downloaded a full-length movie from the Internet. That’s 18 percent of the total US online population.
2,600 Americans took part in the study via telephone and on the web. The study found that users basically don’t believe or care that movie studios are losing money when someone illegally downloads a movie. Interestingly, 78 percent of the people found stealing a DVD from a store to be a “serious offence”, but only 40 percent considered downloading a movie to be just as bad.
Director of the study, Kaan Yigit said in a statement that the movie industry was suffering from the “Robin Hood effect” due to the large profits it makes. “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,” he said.
Just as we noted in a recent piece, the study found that unless a legal offering is competitive enough, users are not going to stop downloading pirated movies. “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,” said Yigit.
Here’s a direct link to the press release. (PDF)
Previously: BitTorrent Store to Compete with Apple, Microsoft and Piracy
Next: TorrentPod Episode 22
18 Responses
What was their first clue?
I don’t consider downloading the same as stealing!When I really like a movie I go to a thetre and watch it. The movies I download are those which I wouldn’t bother seeing otherwise.
The same with music. When I really like a band I go and buy their cd. Downloading from the internet made me actually buying a lot more cd’s because I get to listen a lot of bands otherwise I’d never get to meet!
So true Pax3.
These days, i download a movie first, and if its good, with re watch value, i end up buying it ( when its price at a normal price. Not that 20€ crap, but when its 7€ ).
The amount of crap DVD’s i dident buy thanks to these free previews, well, i’m glad. Because it will have turned me off buying more DVD’s.
I noticed this before, if you mis buy a DVD, you end up being very careful on your next buy trip, and you let some good DVD slip you buy because of one bad expierence.
These days, i’ve got a collection of over 500 DVD’s with very few bad buy’s ( most of those are from the early period, before i started fully using the “free preview” system ;) ). And if they every like to catch me for pirating from the net, well … there arguments how i hurt the industry is not going to hold any water in court ( not with this collection to back me up as a legal DVD buyer :) ).
And I’m just one of them
1/25 million
That’s because when you steal from a store, the product is gone. When you “steal” a movie, you’re only copying it :)
True. And how do you think Metallica became popular? Bootleg copies of course.
If the movies I download are great, I put it on my list of movies to buy on dvd. I delete after watching it.
I don’t have pay per view, so this way is a must for me.
Music, I don’t buy much of unless its someone I want to support.
Just so you know, artist never get any money from cd’s. Or well almost nothing, maybe soomething like 1-3 %
If you go to a consert they might get 30-60 % So if you want to support them, go to their conserts.
And movie directors and so on, get almost 80 % of the profit from cinema tickets. So again if you want to support them go to the cinema.
Personally I always buy the games in the “Zelda” series, because I want them to keep on making great games
^_^
Guys there are 300 million Americans. 25.6 / 300 = 8.5% of the population, not 18%.
But still, wishful thinking is sometimes good.
I pay my internet connection.
I pay my own PC. Including the CD writer or DVD writer.
I pay those blank dvd or cd.
So, why they still consider that i’m stealing ?
I PAY EVERYTHING !!!
right ? am i right ? tell me i am right !
Yes you’re right :). In fact the record company’s should actually get money from DVD-R’s sold, in my honest opinion. Just like the UMG gets a cut out of every Zune, the recording company’s could get a cut out of DVD-R/W and CD-R/W. It’s funny how it’s SONY who makes the DRM for music and movies yet they make blank media. What a bunch of hypocrites, they know they get a lot of money from blank DVDs and blank CDs so they just sell more PLUS enforce people to get the original.
I will say this about 50 times… There’s a difference from stealing and pirating. Stealing is physically removing a product (in this case, a movie/DVD) from the store. Pirating is making a copy of the already payed for DVD and giving it to someone else. If copying is illegal, then I guess everyone should be in jail.
here’s the deal guys. it’s intellectual property. can our puny minds grasp this? intellectual property is a mechanism built in to our legal system in order to promote innovation in the arts and sciences. the difference between the civilized and uncivilized countries is a basic respect for such innovation and the esteeming of progess as a worthy ideal. when you copy stuff illegally, you spit in the face of that ideal. I don’t mean to sound preachy, but a basic respect for the law, even when no one will catch you, is what makes great countries great. I swear it. So don’t illegally copy stuff. I’ve done it before, but I won’t do it again. It’s not worth the spiritual/social/psychic damage that I inflict on myself and my society.
Legalmind wrote;
I don’t mean to sound preachy, but a basic respect for the law, even when no one will catch you, is what makes great countries great.
yeah ? and which countries might that be, the ones breaking the laws that suit them. Pleeez, spare us the “Our rulers know best bit”
Forgot to sign what i’d just posted, hate people to think I was trying to hide.
[quote comment="43192"]Guys there are 300 million Americans. 25.6 / 300 = 8.5% of the population, not 18%.
But still, wishful thinking is sometimes good.[/quote]
And you think all 300 million Americans are online?
2 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.