Torrent Freak tracks the most down-loaded movies ...
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Paranormal Activity’ tops the chart this week followed by Pixar’s ‘Up’. ‘The Tournament’ completes the top three.
And the other faves for downloaders?
4) Public Enemies
5) Surrogates
6) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
7) Battlestar Galactica: The Plan
8) Moon
9) Four Christmases
10) G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
The point here is that downloading these moving pictures is ... uh ... illegal. Because it's theft.
Now you can dress this up with any philosophical trappings you like: "It's a blow for internet freedom!" "We're taking down the evil conglomerates!" "The assholes will never miss the money, they're rich anyway!! And besides, they deserve it!" ... (etc.)
The problem is, if the practice becomes widespread enough, the movie industry will drastically change ... and not for the better. Industry employees will have to find other ways to make their livings, because the structure of the motion picture business will be different in unpretty ways. The cash flows that support pensions, residuals, and health care will be reduced to anemic trickles.
I don't know what the solutions to downloading are, but solutions will emerge. One way or the other.
Posts
13 comments:
Over at the Yahoo Movies message board, there's some clod offering illegal downloads of Astro Boy. I'm surprised Yahoo hasn't deleted his posts.
Steve just made Arlo's head explode.
***Arlo is probably the guy on Yahoo offering the illegal downloads.
Here we go again...
No. The point here is that those are the most downloaded movies.
Assuming piracy is theft, this list is no different than any that lists the 'Top Ten Stolen Cars of 2009'.
Yeah, right...that's exactly how Arlo is going to see this topic...;)
I imagine that digital projection might be able to solve SOME of the problem, perhaps by a small id code, a watermark or something. At least it can help pin down where, what theater, etc. This would take some time though...
r.
It would help to have the number of downloads next to these. Are we talking about 1k, 100k, or 10 million downloads per movie?
It is interesting to see this same site's opinion on the studios' complaining about piracy:
http://torrentfreak.com/sony-ceo-pleads-poverty-but-the-movie-industry-is-loaded-091027/
I cant afford a mortgage. Ill probably rent for the rest of my adult life unless I move away from where the work is.
Netflix especially for the Xbox 360 seems to be doing quite well. Granted this plays to a relatively small group but it's a group who most likely would've pirated the movies before easy streaming solutions existed. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Netflix is built into BluRay players or television sets in the near future.
Comments aren't nearly as interesting without someone defending piracy. For a moment I thought Steve was trying to promote blog "discussion" by posting another thread on a divisive subject. But it lLooks like everyone got that out of their system last week.
That's because nobody is "defending" piracy in the literal sense. It is indefensible. No one can make a case that it is good, useful or beneficial in any way.
The only issues are whether it can be prevented and, if not, what the ultimate impact to the industry will be. Will piracy really destroy our benefits, drive studios out of business and eliminate our jobs, (that is, more than the economy already has), or are all those dire predictions highly exaggerated?
Remember, there was a time when the majors were certain that home video would destroy the business. Now that seems laughable. Is the boy just crying wolf again, or will the gloom and doom predictions come to pass?
Yeah that, and honestly the conversation has played out.
Obviously, you are referring to the posting with the 96 comments downstream.
O.K., let's stick to topic: It's remarkable how many of the top 10 downloaded films were poorly reviewed or under-performers. Could it be that an important motivation for piracy is simply curiosity about a film came and went too quickly for it to find it's audience?
Thanks for the cold shower, anyway.
Post a Comment