Sunday, July 04, 2010

If You Download Movies Online, Are Rental Stores Doomed?

By Adrian Hardy

When a London company announced several years ago that it was offering the first legal service to Watch Ramona And Beezus Movie Online for Free, video store owners around the world began worrying about their future.

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?

Another reason to avoid illegal downloads is quality. Viruses are one more reason. The creators of viruses constantly have to devise new and clever ways to infect the unsuspecting public.

Yes, when downloading movies first began, doing so was illegal. The U.S. Movie industry lost an estimated $2.3 billion annually in revenue to internet pirates just a few years ago. Hollywood's total annual income that year was estimated to be just under $45 billion. So, it should be obvious why Hollywood is harnessing its own download possibilities.

However, uploading the film and downloading it onto home computers are crimes. Hollywood lost an estimated $2.3 billion to internet piracy just a few years ago. Another $3.8 billion was lost to bootlegged DVDs and other "hard goods" piracy that same year. Hollywood's total annual income that year was estimated to be just under $45 billion. So, with $6.2 million slipping through their fingers it should not be surprising that the movie industry is battling piracy with increasing vigor. Some would say 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 bootlegged. However, Hollywood reports that it even loses even more money because of internet piracy in North America and Europe.

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.

Some of the world's biggest DVD-counterfeiters are in China, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. One DVD mill near Manila was cranking out 14 million DVDs annually. Indeed, bootlegged DVDs traceable to China have been identified in at least 25 countries. So it will be with downloadable movies. Already a Sweden-based site functions much like Google, listing movies that are illegally available for free download. In a recent visit to that site, investigators found more than 5 million users online, trading illegally copied films.

Studios will be smart to continue embracing technologies that empower the public to Download Ramona And Beezus Movie Online for Free sitting in their easy chair, barefoot and in their pajamas -- without ever leaving home. - 2361

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