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At Least 25 Million Americans Pirate Movies
ThinSkin writes "Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past, according to a telephone and online study of 2,600 Americans. A typical movie downloader is 29 years of age, while 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female. Kaan Yigit, director of the study, observes, '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. 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.'"
I suspect the number is higher. Free is very attractive. Doing something that is perceived as "criminal" and getting away with it is also very attractive.
Combine these two and you have a huge motivation for people to do this, regardless of their ever watching the movie.
It may be too late to stuff the genii back in the bottle. The result is that this becomes an "entitlement" that people expect. We are looking at a lot of people being out of work as a result. Not the "stars" but the studio grunts and the folks in the promotions and marketing departments.
we are FREEDOM fighters.
Movies are binary encoded Information.
And Information Wants To Be Free.
It is our right and our duty.
I can't speak for the Californian ones, but having looked over a friends here in Vancouver, that's an industry that desperately needs to trim the fat.
and I've only seen one last year! Where can I find the others? :)
Are these folks just too lazy to go to the library and rip DVDs from there? Young people today!
One of the reasons I personally pirate movies is it's easier. I don't have to mess around with anything, I just find a torrent (easy as pie), click 2 buttons and I have it within a couple of hours (on a good torrent under 1 hour). Why ever would I goto the cinema or to a shop to buy something I can get for less effort and money?
I like muppets.
Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past
...and roughly 34 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded the first few minutes of a full-length movie, then cancelled that download to try to find a faster one.
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
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
That's the smartest thing I've read throughout this entire entertainment industry / piracy fiasco. Treating the root problem, instead of the symptoms is sheer brilliance.
The sampling frame would have an inherent bias towards a higher percentage, as those without internet (ie. those who weren't part of the sampling frame, and those who are very unlikely to pirate) weren't even asked. No mention of accounting for this in TFA. Flawed study. Nothing to see here, please move along.
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And it has absolutely nothing to do with $10 tickets at the theater.
This is what the MPAA doesn't quite get. Most people I know over the age of 21 hate going to the theater. It's a fucking hassle.
So when a blockbuster is released like LOTR the options are:
a. suffer in the theater
b. wait half a year for the DVD
c. download the torrent
Just make the first runs available for download and guaranteed the piracy problem will be minimized.
Not at all. When you take something from Best Buy, you are removing a physical object that the store can no longer sell to someone. When you download a movie, no physical object is involved.
Gee, I wonder why people do not think that this is stealing. Maybe because loss of potential sales does not equal stolen product?
The reality is that these groups hate to admit that technology is devaluing their product. Basically, for the first time, these groups have realized that they are unable to set their price to whatever they like. Now that a consumer is able to download their product readily, their product is not as valuable as it once was. As hard as they try, this will not change because it is a structural issue...
Unless the phone poll was conducted exclusively in Silicon Valley, this seems way too high if you ask me. Last I had heard, the U.S. was at about 60% coverage of the population having broadband. I think it's reasonably to say that, bar a few insanely patient people, only broadband users download movies. That breaks down to 30% of the people that reasonably can download movies, have, and I think it's totally absurd to say that a little under 1 in 3 broadband users have pirated a full-length movie.
Unpleasantries.
Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past, according to a telephone and online study of 2,600 Americans.
Absolutely, positively false.
Any not because I consider people more honest than that - If you include people copying DVDs or even back in the days of copying VHS tapes, I'd put the figure closer to 70-80% that have pirated a movie.
But to specifically say "downloaded"?
18% of the US population either doesn't have a net connection anywhere near fast enough to download a full-length movie, or has no clue how to actually do so. The most inflated figures available only put roughly a third of the country as having "broadband", which includes quite a bit of the "anything faster than dialup" you see in rural areas, usually under 384kbps. And of those households with "real" broadband, fewer than half of the occupants actually have a clue on how to use the internet (either young parents with kids too young to pirate, or older parents who only have it for the teenager kids).
So no. 18% of respondants in an almost certainly urban area (much higher broadband penetration) have downloaded a pirated movie. The MPAA, however, needs to learn the meanings of "external validity" and "sample bias".
Agreed. Let's not forget that copyright is a recent notion, proposed by a few people in Western Europe only a few hundred years ago. It did not exist in antiquity--Roman poets such as Martial had no problem with their works being copied and sold as long as they were given credit on the title page--and even today most of the world finds it a nonsensical concept.
When I found out that Hollywood regularly adjusts their accounting practices to show their movies all lose money, I decided to adjust my own checkbook to show that I paid for all the movies on my computer.
{ - Generic Guy - }
~~~ Paf. Le chien.
I think the reason people pirate (new) movies is not because that they think celebrities are already rich. Going to the theater is usually a not-so-great experience. Not only do you have to drive there, but you have to deal with annoying people, pay $8 a ticket, and suffer through ten minutes of bad trailers. Then, once you finally think you are going to enjoy the movie, the people behind you talk or chomp annoyingly loud on their popcorn. Not to mention that it seems the best movies these days often are a limited release, so your *only* option is to pirate it. Somebody needs to offer a nice service where you can buy theatrical releases for $5, that become unplayable in 24 hours.
What I love is that they called it the "Robin Hood" effect. Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor - not to himself.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I've never downloaded a single movie or song... I just copy them from friends, family and co-workers. Let's see the MPAA stop me! Come on you pussies I TRIPPLE-DOG dare you to stop me from copying DVDs. Asshats.
I just counted a few days ago and estimate I have around 850 individual DVD discs, with about 60%-70% being real store purchased DVDs, the others being copies of movies, shows and the MST3K DVD collection project (every MST3K episode ever, all going to DVD).
The reason I copy is so I can take my time with the "borrowed" DVDs and to watch stuff I would never be purchasing anyway. Nor would I rent them. How the MPAA can claim that they lost a purchase from someone like myself just goes to show what a bunch of useless, greedy douchebags they are. F them, I make plenty of real purchases. Perhaps I should just copy everything and never pay for it. Their tactics make a good case for me to just go all bootleg. *Then* what? Can they ever stop sneakernet?
no.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
That's right, I'm a movie pirate! And I like movies rated ARRRRRRR!!!
These results are meaningless! The article states that the "researcher" estimates the error rate to be plus or minus 2.4%. If it was a statistical sample, there would be no estimate of error rate, but instead an actual error rate. If this wasn't a statistical sample, then all that can be stated is 20% of the 2600 people surveyed.
It's also interesting that a survey that was taken via telephone and online is used to extrapolate to the entire population. Since not everyone has a computer, then they could hardly be included in the population (statistical not US). Furthermore, telephone surveys only include people with listed telephone numbers, so again, your statistical population is skewed. Online surveys do not work if they are voluntary (ie would you like to fill out our survey?) Since there is no indication of how many people who chose not to fill out the survey.
Based on the limited information given, it appears that this is another example of using statistics to get them to say what you want. Since most people are functionally illiterate when it comes to statistics, it's very easy for people to use bogus statistical methods to manipulate the data and ultimately the readers of the article.
For any sample to be legit and extrapolated to an entire population it has to be random and representative. If it's not both of those, then the extrapolated data is meaningless.
What they don't tell you, because the question is never asked because nobody would answer truthfully if it was, is that most downloaded movies are porn.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
I've mostly curbed my blatantly piratical activities and gone back into grey-area piracy (television, backing up my own DVDs, copying CDs to my iPod, etc.), but I think that's because the novelty has worn off. Yes, I can download using a torrent, but the quality is usually not as good as what I can rip myself from the original, so I give preference to buying/renting the media. BitTorrent is useful; it is unquestionably the best distribution network available today. My initial experience with it was basically "whoa! magic!", and I'm sure that's a major factor today. Everyone I've introduced to BitTorrent is equally enthralled.
People are curious about what you can get on the wide-open Internet. Free stuff is all over the place. Downloading gives near-instant gratification (well, unless you're on a modem) without leaving your house. There is practically no competition to the ubiquity and convenience of P2P file sharing. Satellite and Digital Cable aren't IP-based solutions, so it's an extra service on top of your Internet fee. None of the major television networks allow you to pay them directly and get an Internet-based feed, nor do any of the major motion picture production houses.
I think a more sane approach to P2P piracy is to increase the rate at which people get bored with BitTorrent. Offer competing, low-cost alternatives to buying or renting the media. Provide television service on the Internet. I'm certain that I would pay money for high-quality Internet-based content delivery. I *really* want to watch live sports on the Internet. I'd love to log into my local television network and download archived copies of stuff they aired. And I'm quite willing to pay for it. I've already chosen my distribution medium, and the pirates are the only guys catering to it. Don't complain about the piracy, offer an alternative.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
18% sounds like a good start, I'd expect this number to increase to about 35-40% before the studios finally release non-DRMed versions for downloads (at lower than DVD prices).
This board (Slashdot) is filled with a virtual panoply of views on this subject. As is usual though, I think the truth of the matter lies in the nebulous neutral zone.
Let's face it, neither side has really taken the high road on this. People download and distribute movies like they were free commodities and the MPAA bullies people unreasonably and tries to make us all thieves.
I have to sit in theatre with my $12 ticket and watch the stunt double talk about his belief that stealing movies is wrong (I just paid $12 for this, talk about preaching to the choir). And then I blow 20+ minutes watching advertisements for other movies (AKA: previews). When I take a movie home, I have to watch the trailers (they lock out the buttons) for movies I may already have seen or in fact may already own. And then I can't complain and return the video b/c it's already open.
However, the vast load of downloaders are some mix of vigilantes and free-loaders, collectors and connoisseurs. So every solution proposed by the MPAA (i.e.: DRM) effectively blocks the good downloaders as well as the free-loaders.
In the end really, both sides are too stuck up to take the high road and fix the problem. So we'll just end up with 40% of people stealing music before the studios just give in. After which we'll be flooded with 5 years of low-quality movies until people start anteing up again.
Why not just skip the whole process, stop bad-mouthing everyone and figure out something that works. If I want to buy newly-released Italian movies for my family and I can't find them, then who can I lean on to get them out here? If I can't stand previews, then how can I organize around them? Can I show up late with a dozen friends and walk in near the estimated end of the previews? Can I take cell phone calls during the previews, I mean, it's not really the movie is it? You know the stunt double guy? I just stopped going to the theatre that showed him. Maybe I should start asking sales clerks about return policies on DVDs, or refusing to buy DVDs that are "not quite DVDs".
I'm a basketball fan, but I don't have cable. Once they start posting my Raptors games to the Net, then I will start buying them (so that I can watch them on the bus to work). But until then, I just don't watch them. I don't download them illegally out of some self-righteous belief that I can, I'm taking the high road and waiting for them to catch up.
Most people believe that pirating movies and music does not hurt the big stars. Well, realistically it probably doesn't. But there are hundreds or thousands more people that work in/on movies than the big name stars and I'm sure their salary will be the first to be cut if the studios feel the pinch. You can save a few million by cutting salaries of all the other workers while keeping the stars' paychecks high.
Same deal when a company falls on hard times, the lowly employees get canned, raises are suspended, some salary reductions may occur if voted in (sometimes employees are given this choice instead of being laid off), but the CEO and the high-ups still make a crapload of money.
Not to say I'm a Saint or anything. Sometimes I get to thinking and realize I may be getting that one key grip laid off.
Will you people please for the love of all that is holy get it straight.
Theft is theft, and copyright violation is copyright violation. If they were the same thing, we wouldn't need two different laws to handle them each.
To make it super simple:
Theft: The act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny.
Copyright Violation: The unauthorized use of material that is protected by intellectual property rights law particularly the copyright in a manner that violates one of the original copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it.
Quit buying into the idiotic *AA party line that copyright violation is the same thing as theft. It is not!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Who was stupid enough to admit to that over a phone survey where they have your name, address, and phone number?
Perhaps you should try this one: go down to the Ford dealership, get a few salesmen to talk to you about their most expensive truck, and then invite them to come watch you buy a Chevrolet down the street instead. They'll be upset too, but that doesn't mean you should buy a Ford just to make the salesmen happy. They'd like to make a sale, but that doesn't mean you owe it to them.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
For most adults going to the Theatre stinks, the seats are too close, the 30 minutes of commercials are annoying and by the time you pay for one ticket, an 8 dollar tub of popcorn and a 5 dollar drink its cheaper to buy the dvd 6 months later.
When I was a kid I would go to the movies a couple times a month, now its a couple times a year. I actually have more free time to do so, but the negatives far outweigh the positives so I stay home.
Legal downloads are insane, most of them are more expensive than DVD's, have crappier resolution, and have so much drm they are basically useless. If streaming movies were available day and date with DVD or PPV releases at a cost similar to PPV it would probably go over much better.
I know Divx (Not the encoding but the format pushed by Circuit City) wasnt popular in the store, but something similar would be a pretty decent solution for downloads, a limited play but burnable download for $3-$4 sounds alot more attractive than driving to a rental place.
Whatever happened to Mark Cuban's experiment with day and date theatrical releases? It sounded like a good idea, I really dont think the theatre crowd will shrink much, the few times I go it seems its mostly teenagers there for the hang out so they will still show up. Movies that have to be experienced on the big screen will still draw crowds.
I suspect alot of the fear with day and date releases is that streaming or downloads will even the playing field, at the theatre you get anywhere from 1-20 choices where with an online service you could potentially have hundreds, suddenly art and independent films have the same marquee as the big studios which will only hurt the big studios.
"...while 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female..."; There, we have it, Hermaphrodites are honest folks.
To tell you the truth, if I had to watch cartel product, I'd prefer "pirated" movies to store bought DVD's simply because I am not forced to watch or skip all of the damned advertisements. I have seen these movies on home made DVD's at other people's homes. I am amazed at their high quality. It should be high time that the movie and music industry stop suing and start listening to their customers. They can start doing this by removing Digital Restrictions Management from their products and stop overcharging. The only reason why these cartels have gotten away with their overcharging for so many years is because they have shut out any competition. Thankfully, those days are over.
With that said, I also want to state that I download video and music from the Internet all of the time. Just about everything that I download however, is not owned or copyrighted by the entertainment cartels. This is not because I have any moral qualms about doing so, rather, it is because most of the stuff produced by the entertainment cartels is pure unadultrated crap. It is a good thing that there are so many people "pirating." I hope that the piracy rate goes even higher until the entertainment cartels finally get the message. When the cartels finally accept the fact that they can no longer overcharge for their product and put unreasonable controls over how their product can be watched, they may regain some of the customers they have lost.
Much of what has been put out by the cartels these days has been little more than glorified reruns. If I want original entertainment, I go to the Internet and such sites as You Tube. The entertainment cartels will most likely never again make the kind of money that they once made now that they have competition, however people will be better off, and new producers will be able to enter the market. Yes, "piracy" is good, and no, it is NOT STEALING.
Ask the guy who wrote Forest Gump. the movie studio rigged their accounting so he didn't get a cent. Peter Jackson is suing Newline for ripping him off on royalties. This is called "Hollywood Accounting"
;-)
Yes, piracy is stealing, but so are the studios when they steal from these guys. I doubt the Forest Gump author would shed a tear if you told him you stole 'his' movie
Suppose you're in your car, stopped at a red light, when someone walks up and washes your windshield. You never asked him to do it, and he never made an offer; he just starts doing it. Then, when he's done, he demands $10 for this service. Do you owe him $10?
I say no. That's not how working works - you don't do the work first, unsolicited and without a promise of payment, and then demand that whoever benefitted from it has to pay you.
If you want to be a janitor for the city, you can't just go pick up some garbage at the park, and then march down to city hall demanding to get paid for the hours you put in. You have to offer them your services first and come to an agreement as to what they want you to do and how much you want to get paid for it. You have to face the possibility that maybe they aren't willing to pay you as much as you think your time is worth, and if that's the case, you can choose to spend your time doing something else.
It's the same with this. If you want to get paid for writing a song, it's stupid to write the song first, for free, and then demand payment from everyone who listens to it or downloads it. You can't demand payment later for unsolicited work you did earlier. If you want to get paid, you should find someone who'll agree to pay you for your time, then start working. Or are you ok working hard all day and someone else using it without paying you?
Just curious... See, I don't have that problem, because my employer and I have an understanding: if I do X hours of work, I'm entitled to Y dollars. If my employer doesn't want to pay me anymore, then I don't have to do the work anymore. (Of course, he still has to compensate me for the work I did while the promise to pay was still in effect.)
A person downloading music, however, has not made any promises to the artist. An artist is not morally entitled to payment just because the downloader listened to his song, or made a copy of it, or shared that copy with a friend. The downloader didn't ask him to write it; the artist made that choice on his own, perhaps hoping to get paid, but knowing full well that he can't control what other people do with his song once they hear it.
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