Movie downloads taking off: the good news and the bad news
By John Pospisil
The good news for Microsoft as it prepares to launch the consumer versions of Vista is that more Americans are downloading movies onto their PC.
Why pay, when you can download movies for free?
The bad news for the movie industry is most of them are doing so illegally.
A new study, Digital Life America, has found that 32 million Americans over the age of 12 (18% of the online population) have at some point downloaded a full-length movie; 20 million of these download movies regularly, having downloaded a movie in last month. And while this might sound like good news for the movie industry, the problem is that 80% of movie downloaders only use peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.
The problem is made worse for the movie industry because only 40% believe that downloading movies from the internet is a “very serious offense” compared to 78% who agree that “taking a DVD from a store without paying” is a very serious offense.
“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,” commented Kaan Yigit, Study Director.
“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,” added Yigit.
The other interesting finding from the study is that Americans are also watching content on their PC – 56% watched a DVD on a PC at some point and 29% viewed a DVD on a PC last month. 25% watched a streaming TV show on their PCs.
The Digital Life America survey involved a survey of 2616 Americans – 1016 by phone and 1600 via online. The results cited in this release are accurate to plus or minus 2.4 percent, 19 times out of 20.
Microsoft has, in part, positioned Vista to be the foundation of a home entertainment system. For example Windows Media Center SportsLounge in conjunction with FOXSports.com combines live television, real-time scores and online sports media. Premium versions of Windows Vista will also offer new content from existing content partners and new ones, like Nickelodeon, Showtime and Starz.
This study seems to confirm that there is a move towards PCs being used for the acquisition and consumption of movie content. The trick, for everyone trying to make money out of this, will be to convert the pirates into paying customers.
This can be done two ways: making it more difficult to download movies illegally, or making the legal download of movies more compelling.
Ultimately, the study confirms something that we all know; people are more likely to commit a crime if there is a small chance of getting caught is small.
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Stumble It!
January 25th, 2007
A *cough* friend of mine wanted to catch up on Stargate Atlantis before the season premiere of Season 3. My *cough* friend was able to leagally obtain Season 1, but he had to resort to piracy to obtain season 2, because it is not available on the open market. The entertainment industry needs to realize that some piracy occurs because they are too slow to bring their content to consumable media. In some cases the industry is blaming pirates when they are really “leaving money on the table.”