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Piracy Outstripping Legal Video Sales?
b.burl writes to tell us a recently released report by the NDP Group supports the horror stories being fed to us by studio execs, but not quite in the way those execs would have you believe. The study shows a continued rise in video piracy compared to legal video sales. The largest target continues to be adult oriented content and TV shows, with only an estimated 5 percent being mainstream movie content. From the article: "[A]mong U.S. households with members who regularly use the Internet, 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. Nearly 60 percent of video files downloaded from P2P sites were adult-film content, while 20 percent was TV show content and 5 percent was mainstream movie content."
Why you think the net was born?
Porn! Porn! Porn!
#1 cause of computer literacy among 18-24 males.
And this is a crying shame.
I download television show content myself. What I can get on iTunes, I get on iTunes and pay $2 per show, or buy a whole season at a time. What I can't, I seek elsewhere, including P2P networks. I don't download movies at all, because I can simply get them on DVD.
The fact is that I'm not going to pay $50 a month for cable or satellite for something that's, frankly, not worth that much to me. Television and movie studios can either get compensation for their stuff by making it available to me in a manner I want (iTunes/timely release of DVDs), or they can get bupkiss when I download it for free, an option that I'd really rather avoid, to be honest.
If, god forbid, the industry succeeds somehow in making television shows impossible to download, then I simply won't watch their stuff at all. Most of it has that little value to me.
It's all so stupid. I can't believe there's an industry out there that is so desperate to stop the pirates that they're willing to forego billions of dollars, yet here we are, living it.
If someone gave you the choice of making $1 billion for making a television show, but the show is pirated to an extent such that over half the people who watch it don't pay you, or making $500 million for making a television show with little or no piracy of it at all with a much, much smaller audience, which would you prefer?
Yeah, me too. Stupid, huh?
As for porn, I don't care. I've only seen a few porn movies myself, and I don't find them exciting. I honestly think that porn is one of those things that everyone thinks they're supposed to be really into, so they watch it and act like it's a big deal; but realistically, once you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all. People get naked and do it, ho hum. Check out this other one where... Um... People get naked and do it, ho hum. But you know, whatever. I guess if there's anything I don't understand about that is why people still buy DVDs or the naughty channels on cable when they can pretty much get anything they want over the Internet.
10MB is still well within the range of the size of videos porn sites flood the net with as teasers to get people to go pay for the full-length stuff on their websites. Just because it's being downloaded for free via P2P doesn't mean it's piracy or illegal, it may be precisely what the publishers of the content wanted.
Blockbuster doesn't carry pr0n, neither does Wal-Mart. Besides, your neighbors are at Wal-Mart.
I think TV series are in the position that VHS movies were 15 years ago. Back then, movies cost 80$ US, and nobody bought them. When the price came down to the 20$ range, they started to sell. I think many people feel the same about TV series. At 80$ a season, they're not going to sell. I mean, after all it's just a TV show. If the prices came down to the 30$ range, I bet more people would buy them because they're major fans, or to watch the two episodes they missed.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Pirate that I am, I evilly downloaded the first three episodes of Heroes because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. The videos I downloaded had had ALL THE COMMERCIALS REMOVED! No revenue for you, NBC!
Of course, as a result, my wife and I sit down and watch Heroes on NBC every week, including commercials (we don't watch enough TV to need a TiVo). If we hadn't been able to illegally download those videos, we'd likely not be watching the show OR the commercials.
So I ask: Did it benefit or hurt NBC that I illegally downloaded and watched the first three episodes of Heroes?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
The MPAA is constantly whining, wasting millions of dollars, and annoying all of us over 5 percent? I made the mistake of buying a DVD recently and had to sit through that annoying anti piracy clip. You know... "You wouldn't steal a car would you? You wouldn't steal a purse..." Yeah, because stealing a car, and copying a DVD are even remotely the same. Its frustrating and insulting that every time I watch my PURCHASED DVD, this stupid thing will come up. I don't like being accused of stealing, before watching my movies. Ironically, if I'd have just pirated the movie, I wouldn't be seeing that clip, as well as other annoying previews. Maybe they should concentrate on making good movies to win over new customers, instead of insulting remaining customers.
v. to outdo; surpass; excel.
I don't think this word means what you think it means. To outstrip legal downloads, piracy would have had to been behind first, which is a preposterous claim.
Those porn actors should not complain about loss of sales, they get busy each and every day for hours! Who are they to complain! :-D
Would you want to fuck Ron Jeremy for free?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Why is downloading TV shows illegal? They are broadcast for free on the tv anyway, and I just fast forward at 5X through the commercials on my DVR, so I don't see them anyway. Why are they pissy about tv shows being bad to download, oh no! someone might actually watch their show! I agree about porn being up there, its because its expensive and not at common rental places or stores
...and it is incredibly addicting. Xbox live media download has serious flaws (lack of content, lack of chapters, etc.) but it is incredibly easy to use. I've already spent $60 on there due to just being bored and having instant (well, within 5 minutes) gratification. I've since toned down my purchases, but that $60 is more than I've spent all year on DVDs and CDs.
I believe once content providers use and improve on this model pay pay to download content will approach or surpass illegal downloads.
Seeing what the answer to that question will explain why piracy is doing better than legitimate sales.
As soon as they put the videos online for sale and download without DRM and a standardized format (Divx or Xvid), I think you will see a dramatic change.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
That only 4.8% of internet users downloaded 10 MB of internet porn?
;)
No, it's a survey, remember? Only 4.8% of internet users ADMITTED to downloading 10MB of porn
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I download the occasional tv show, when I happen to be busy when the show I like is broadcast or I fail to tivo it. IMHO if the Execs would look at the big picture they would find that it probably increases revenue rather than lessens it. Take 24 for instance, its a show where you pretty much have to see every episode, if I miss one I download it. The alternative is to wait until the season is over and buy the box set, which I do anyway. When I miss a show or several episodes and cant find a torrent, I generally just stop watching until the box set is available so they loose my eyeballs the rest of the season. Usually somewhere in between the missed show and the dvd release I tend to loose interest and forget about it, so they loose even the dvd revenue. This is what happend with me and Lost, I watched all of the first season, missed almost a month of season two and the only torrents I could find were unbearably slow so I just stopped watching. I had every intention of getting it on DVD but found another show I liked that was on at the same time so I still havent bothered.
I dont have an IPod and dont care for itunes, but if I could buy a download at a reasonable price that was at a resolution viewable on my tv I would have no problem doing so. A few networks have at least figured out part of that, my son for example watches Ben10 on cartoon networks website for free regularly. Since its free he doesnt mind watching it on the computer, they flash banner ads so they get their ad revenue and everyone is happy.
For some reason the networks have a hard time accepting that times have changed the days of the whole family sitting down at 8pm to watch Ed Sullivan are long over, people are busier and have more diversions and distractions. Giving the viewing audience flexability is the future, the old ways will die, it might take a while and will be fought tooth and nail but its no less inevitable.
Uhhh, I don't know what planet you're living on, but here on Earth, porn is VERY popular, if anything, MORE people are fans of it than care to admit. The whole beauty of Internet porn is the SHEER variety of it all. Seen one, seen 'em all? I could say the same thing about Chinese people, but that would be just ignorant, wouldn't it? If you're not into porn, and it's "all the same to you", that's fine and dandy. I can't fathom why people like professional football so much. Seen one game, seen em all, right?
Report is from NPD Group, well who are their clients ... EMI Music (a large RIAA member).
This is not an unbiased research firm, they are a marketing company and will serve the interests of their clients.
Probably just another arm of the RIAA/MPAA. I don't see how it would possibly serve this for-profit company's interests to say anything other than downloading is theft
Actually there are many things about the reality of the porn business that would amaze most people, mostly about how mundane and professional it is, and the large number of women who are porn producers - not performers. One day I really should write a book.
And yes, porn actors in my experience are a pretty happy lot. They are much easier to deal with than "real" actors; fewer tantrums, less drug abuse, punctual, professional, sober, reliable, etc...