Immediately thousands of fans jumped on the release and according to figures collated by TorrentFreak, in the days that followed it was downloaded half a million times. While this may very well be a record for a “CAM” movie, it failed to exceed the download numbers of several other movies that were available in higher quality.

Record or not, the movie’s distributer Disney must have been terrified by this early release. However, this weekend the suits at the studio were able to breathe a sign of relief, or rather, start popping open the Champagne.

With more than $200 million in box office revenue, The Avengers had the most successful first weekend in movie history. It broke the record set by Harry Potter last year by more than $30 million, despite the “massive” piracy.

But is this really such a big surprise? Not when you look at the numbers.

Of all the people who downloaded a pirate copy of the film about 20% came from the US. This means that roughly 100,000 Americans have downloaded a copy online through BitTorrent. Now, IF all these people bought a movie ticket instead then box office revenue would be just 0.5% higher.

Not much of an impact, and even less when you consider that these “pirates” do not all count as a lost sale.

We don’t think that there are many movie fans who see a low quality camcorded version of a movie as a true alternative to watching a film in a movie theater. The two are totally different experiences, and not direct competition at all.

If anything, downloading a camcorded movie could be compared to downloading a low quality bootleg of a concert. People who download these are collectors, passionate fans, or just curious. But in no way do these bootlegs seriously hurt concert attendances.

The same might be said for advance leaks of games. These pre-release copies are often downloaded by tens of thousands of people, but not necessarily those who refuse to pay. The people who download these buggy and sometimes hardly playable games are often curious game fanatics who tend to buy the official game when it comes out.

The claim that camcorded films are killing the movie industry is nonsense and spending millions of dollars on anti-camcording technologies is simply not worth it.

But does this mean that piracy is not an issue for the movie industry at all? Well not so fast.

A recent study showed that the US box office is not suffering from movie piracy, but that there is a detrimental effect on international box office figures. The researchers attribute this impact to the wide release gaps, which sometimes result in a high quality DVD copy being available on pirate sites while a movie is still showing in theaters.

These high quality copies are more likely to “compete” with movie theater attendance and if a movie is not showing in local theaters at all, it definitely has the potential to impact future attendance.

This is even more true for the DVD-aftermarket and VOD sales. High quality pirated copies are direct competition and can impact revenues.

The challenge for the movie industry is to make legal offerings more appealing than pirated counterparts. Of course it may not always be able to compete with “free,” but there is still a lot of ground to make up when it comes to availability and quality of legal offerings.

But in no way are camcorded copies killing the US movie industry.

Source: The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

For nearly half a decade we have compiled weekly and yearly lists of the most popular downloads, and following on from Netflix’s publication of the most rented movies of all time, we today present the equivalent for BitTorrent downloads.

With an estimated 21 million downloads, Avatar is the most pirated movie of all time, followed by The Dark Knight and Transformers with about 19 million downloads each. Interestingly enough, none of the above films were present in Netflix’s list.

The BitTorrent and Netflix lists do show some overlap, as Inception and The Departed make an appearance in both.

Despite the massive piracy, the films below have not done too shabbily at the box-office. Avatar is the best grossing movie of all time and The Dark Knight is third, right before Star Trek.

—

The list below is based on statistics is gathered from public BitTorrent trackers, dating back to early 2006. As BitTorrent’s usage was only a fraction of what it is today in the years before, we expect the list below to cover all the most downloaded movies on BitTorrent.

Source: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of All Time

The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of July 28, 2008…

Source: Most Downloaded DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk30)

The origin of these movies is not clear, but it is probable that they’ve been downloaded via p2p at some point, either on these systems, or on the personal systems of officers and transferred over.

Senior officials of the SA police force have been made aware of the findings, including its commissioner Mel Hyde. However, police sources have told press that there will not be any investigation into this, citing the large numbers of police officers involved.

The Australian Federation against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has said it will write to the commissioner to seek an explanation, presumably as to why the police officers are being let off with what it considers a heinous crime. Quite ironically, AFACT boasts of “working closely with police” – perhaps this closeness has shown the police officers involved just how unimportant and meaningless this so-called ‘crime’ is in the grand scheme of things.

If the officers do go unpunished, it could create a favorable precedent for filesharers in South Australia. If police officers, who are expected to be held to a greater level of accountability regarding the law, show this level of contempt for the current copyright laws, are unpunished, it will make it harder to convince a court that regular citizen should be punished for similar acts.

On the other hand, if the officers are punished under the law, which allows for upto AUS$60,500 (About US$55,700 or 35,500Euro) per infringement and up to 5 years imprisonment, the ability to effectively police the state will be severely diminished.

Either way, this case will bring to a head the vastly disproportionate penalties for an act that, as yet, has never been proven to be even financially damaging. One thing is certain, when even the police officers join large numbers of citizens in flouting such laws, the law’s place in society should be called into serious question.

The South Australian police force had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

Source: Australian Police Caught Pirating Movies

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of March 18, 2007…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk11)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of March 5, 2007…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk09)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of February 25, 2007…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk08)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of February 17, 2007…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk07)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of January 19, 2007…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk06)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of January 19, 2007…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk05)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of January 19, 2007…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk04)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of January 19, 2007…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk03)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of January 13, 2007…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk02)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of January 5, 2007…

Source: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk01)

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of December 30, 2006…

Source: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk52)

The data is collected by Big Champagne, the numbers of seeds and peers is the average swarm size of the torrents during the last week. Check out Infofilter for daily updated BitTorrent Charts statistics.

thanks to p2pnet

Source: BitTorrent Movie Download Chart (wk42)

The data is collected by Big Champagne, the numbers of seeds and peers is the average swarm size of the torrents during the last week. Check out Peermind for more free p2p filesharing (non BT) statistics.

thanks to p2pnet

Source: BitTorrent Movie Download Chart (wk40)

The data is collected by Big Champagne, the numbers of seeds and peers is the average swarm size of the torrents during the last week. Check out Peermind for more free p2p filesharing (non BT) statistics.

thanks to p2pnet

Source: BitTorrent Movie Download Chart (wk39)

The movies are hosted by publicdomaintorrents, the great resource for movie addicts we discussed earlier.

Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter’s wife. Silent classic based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” (imdb)

More Info and Different formats at publicdomainmovies.

Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only survivor of a devastating world-wide plague due to a mysterious immunity he acquired to the bacterium while working in Central America years ago. (imdb)

More Info and Different formats at publicdomainmovies.

Five diverse people are invited to a ‘haunted house’ party. They are offered $10,000 each by an eccentric millionaire and his wife to spend the night in a house with a murderous past. (imdb)

More Info and Different formats at publicdomainmovies.

In flashback, New York nightclub pianist Al Roberts hitchhikes to Hollywood to join his girl Sue. On a rainy night, the sleazy gambler he’s riding with mysteriously dies; afraid of the police, Roberts takes the man’s identity. But thanks to a blackmailing dame, Roberts’ every move plunges him deeper into trouble. (imdb)

More Info and Different formats at publicdomainmovies.

Seymour is a young man who works in a flower store. He manages to create a carnivorous plant that feeds on human flesh. Nobody knows about it, so Seymour and the plant become good “friends”. The plant needs food to grow up, so it convinces him to start killing people. A very young Jack Nicholson also appears in a small role. (imdb)

More Info and Different formats at publicdomainmovies.

More Public Domain Movies can be found at publicdomaintorrents.com

Source: 5 Movie Classics: Free and Legal on BitTorrent

The growth is a result of BitTorrent’s deals with companies like Warner, Chinese TV and Movie companies, and other movie companies. BitTorrent is also planning to open their very own video store later this year.

The serverpark is located at the Main 365 datacenter in San Francisco, BitTorrent’s hometown. Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent states:

“BitTorrent is not a company that limits itself by convention. With our aggressive growth plans we need a data center that can grow with us and deliver reliable power, cooling and connectivity. 365 Main provides these features within a stone’s throw away from our engineering team in San Francisco,”.

And I always thought BitTorrent was supposed to save you bandwidth…

Source: BitTorrent Inc expands server park

Buffy is among movies and TV shows AOL hopes to peddle for between $10 and $20 each through its new video site.

“The offerings also mark the latest experiments in online distribution as studios and TV networks try everything from showing programs for free on their Web sites to selling already-aired episodes for $1.99 each through Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store, Google Inc.’s video store and others.” says the Associated Press.

“Although users will own the titles, meaning viewing won’t be automatically disabled after a day or two, the movies can be played on only a limited number of Windows-based personal computers or portable devices that support Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Media Player technology,” says AP.

“Limits vary, but they are about four devices for movies and 10 for television shows,” and, “For now, movies may not be burned onto DVDs, a restriction that so far has limited the appeal of movie downloads,” says AP.

p2pnet

Source: AOL to sell movies and TV-shows online

According to Cnet BitTorrent teamed up with more movie studios to distribute movies online

“The filmmakers that signed with BitTorrent are Hart Sharp Video, Egami Media (a subsidiary of Image Entertainment), Koch Entertainment and The Orchard. Videos offered include documentaries, feature-length and short films, live music concerts, comedy recordings and TV programming.”

At this point it is unclear when these services will lauch and what the prices will be.

Source: More Movie Deals For BitTorrent

According to an article in Variety Apple CEO Steve Jobs wants the movies to be $9.99, but the Studio’s are giving him a hard time:

Studios have resisted Jobs’ initial insistence that feature films be priced at the easy-to-remember $9.99. After all, library titles are typically sold to Wal-Mart and Best Buy significantly cheaper than new releases. Studios now are trying to convince Apple to sell similar content at multiple price points, something the company has never done.

the article continues:

Also complicating the deals: The studios are working out terms with a host of other distributors, including Amazon, Movielink and BitTorrent, in part to make sure that one company does not dominate. It seems that none of the studios wants to be first in making a deal with Apple. Disney would be the logical leader, but even they are cautious, fearing it will look like in-house synergy rather than a business decision.

And the rumors go on, there are “insiders” suggesting that the movie store wil be “BitTorrent powered, and that people can earn credits if they share bandwidth. This could go through the torrent client that will be included in OS X 10.5 “Leopard”.

Last month it was announced that BitTorrent users could save for free goodies from the Itunes store, if they help to distribute software updates.

Source: Apple’s Movie Download Store

But there’s more, all previous winners of “the world’s strangest little film festival” are available at BitTorrent.com, high res, or ipod format.

This collaboration makes it possible for movie fans all over the world to download and watch the independent movies created for the annual Duke City Shootout. During the festival the authors of seven 12-minute screenplays will be selected to come to New Mexico to make their movies using digital equipment. The Festival takes place July 21 to 29.

Lily Lin, BitTorrents director of communications , confirmed the deal and said:

the collaboration with the film institute and Shootout is indicative of BitTorrent’s desire to continue making the content of independent artists available while also moving toward partnerships with large motion picture studios.

That’s the way we like to see it!

press release

Source: Free “Duke City Shootout” Movie Downloads

Warner Bros president Kevin Tsujihara thinks that his company can fight the increasing losses that piracy “caused”, by offering their customers the option to download movies and TV-shows legally.

“If we can convert 5, 10 or 15 percent of the illegal downloaders into consumers of our product, that is significant.”

The new service will start this summer.

Source: Warner Bros Will Distribute Movies And TV-Shows Via BitTorrent

A great example of a successful BitTorrent release is the movie Star Wreck. This indie movie was released via BitTorrent and became Finland’s most popular movie within just a couple of months, got aired on TV, and had two sold-out screenings at a Norwegian film festival.

The public is ready. Just take a look at popular TV shows like Lost, 24, and Prison Break. These shows are posted on the net immediately after they aired and some of them are downloaded more than 2milion times in a week. TV and Movie companies begin to realize that they’re losing money if they don’t get in now.

Fox and ABC already started to offer TV streams, but that’s clearly not the solution. People demand high quality content, whenever and wherever they want. Moreover, offering streams to millions of people costs a lot of money (bandwidth). The great advantage of BitTorrent and other p2p technologies is that it’s virtually free!.

But, back to the movies. At the Tribeca Film Festival Ashwin Navin of Biottorrent inc. said:

Distribution of film online is coming sooner than you think, and I think that the independent film community is going to lead the way in terms of creating a lot of value for consumers. Today alone some 700,000 peer-to-peer downloads took place over the Internet, many using software like BitTorrent.

Dean Garfield from the MPAA, BitTorrents partner in crime, was also at the festival and stated:

studios aren’t all walking around in the dark bumping heads. People are seriously sitting down trying to think of solutions.

So it wont be long before the first Blockbusters will “legally” debut on BitTorrent. However, movie theatres don’t have to worry according to filmmaker Steven Soderbergh. He probably made the most thoughtful comment:

I don’t think people will stop (going to movie theaters), because its still the primary date destination

Source: Distribution of film online is coming sooner than you think

BitTorrent co-founder and President Ashwin Navin states:

“We want to aggregate video and other content and make it available in a legal and sanctioned area”