Monday, July 5, 2010

Does Online Movie Downloads Mean The End Of The Video Store?

By Hunter Bacale

Video store owners worldwide surely trembled not so long ago when the first legal service to Watch Ramona And Beezus Movie for Free was announced to consumers. After all, movie downloading companies today are aiming at a massive market. If you doubt there's an opportunity waiting, just look at the huge number of films downloaded illegally in recent years.

After all, average citizens all have a larcenous streak. Why not get something for free? A key reason is that downloading movies on the internet without paying is illegal -- a violation of a number of federal laws. Don't feel any risk? Remembers the very public examples that law enforcement made of unauthorized music downloaders several years ago. So, if you are downloading movies illegally, ask yourself if you really want to hear your name on the cable news shows?

Legal movie downloading companies say they are aiming for the very customer who frequents the corner video store. Indeed, VHS and DVD rental is a massive market worldwide. Movie marketers today schedule not only the first-run release of each new movie these days, but also when it will be released in second-run theaters, then how and when it will hit foreign cinemas, then when the film will become available on DVD and when it will go to HBO, Starz, Showtime and other cable outlets. Now stir in one more possibility -- home download release. What once was illegal has become a viable marketplace.

Just a few months ago, somebody sitting at their home computer uploaded a high-quality copy of a newly released film onto a certain illegal person-to-person file-sharing network. Within weeks, that one file had been downloaded by 30,408 people on six continents. Dozens of other illegal copies of the movie found their way onto the hard drives of many thousands more.

Today China is the capital of movie piracy. Indeed, within hours of a film being released nationwide in the U. S., illegal DVD copies are available on the street in Shanghai and Beijing. About 90 percent of DVDs sold in China are bootlegs, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Why? Because China puts quotas on the number of foreign films allowed into the country -- and carefully screens them, making sure nothing gets in that would spread dangerous ideas such as free speech or democracy. In Iran, every film must pass approval by Muslim morals police. The same restrictions apply in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Islamic world. And in Burma, Cuba and North Korea. So in each of those nations, movie pirates are feeding a hunger for freedom that dictators have tried to quash.

Yet does online piracy really endanger Hollywood? A very good case can be made that pirates fill a gap overseas where legitimate markets are heavily restricted by repressive regimes -- such as in the Islamic Republic of Iran where every movie must be approved by the religious morals police. The People's Republic of China sets quotas of the number of movies allowed into the country -- and frequently blocks any film that is critical of China's dictatorial leaders. So a case could be made that Iranian and Chinese pirates are actually busting their government's blockade on "dangerous" ideas such as freedom of speech or the right to elect one's own leaders.

In fact, the downloadable movie market is booming. Studios will be smart to study today's ever-changing technologies -- and every move of internet pirates.

So, expect the pirates to exploit the internet. But watch out for Hollywood to figure out clever strategies as well -- as the ability to Download Ramona And Beezus Movie for Free becomes a part of everyday life.

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