The Cost of Movie Piracy to the U.S
A recent study by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) reveals that Movie Piracy not only has a direct impact on the movie business, but that is also affect the US economy on a larger scale.
The research is based on the outcome of the MPAA funded LEK study that revealed that the movie industry lost $1.3 billion in the US, and $6.1 billion worlwide.
Based on these figures, the IPI concludes that Movies Pirates (online and offline) are responsible for:
However, the research does not report about the benefits of movie Piracy to the US economy. Especially online piracy is creating a lot of jobs and tax revenue. Pirates pay for broadband connections, buy harddisks and blank media etcetera. However, perhaps even more important, a recent study show that online piracy is a valuable source of innovation to the industries, as well as to entrepreneurs. Online pirates tend to be early adopters and they actually aid to the emergence of new and innovative business models.
Perhaps the MPAA should put more effort in developing new and innovative (p2p!) ways to distribute Motion Pictures over the web.
