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.'"

18%?

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.

Have you ever one of their union books?

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.

Re:

18% actually seems a little high to me. I don't download full-length movies because it takes too damn long (unless the quality is really crappy), and when I decide I want a movie, I don't want to wait all day for it to download. If DVDs cost 50 bucks a p

Re:18%?

18% actually seems a little high to me.

I'd say so, too...unless they are counting porn.

I think the movie industry is really overstating their case here. A recent study [npd.com] claims that P2P downloads are 60% porn, 20% TV shows, and only 5% full-length movies.

So what are they so worried about? Consider the fact that porn is by far the most downloaded copyrighted content, and it's probably safe to assume that pirated porn represents a much, much larger percentage of porn consumed in comparison to "legitimate" movies, and thus their "losses" are far higher. Can anyone honestly claim that porn is dying from piracy?

Re:18%?

Not the "stars" but the studio grunts and the folks in the promotions and marketing departments.

Dwindling profits for Hollywood's major studios is probably for the best. Obviously Hollywood has been incapable of producing--among popular blockbusters--a decent percentage of truly fine artistic achievements in spite of their huge profits. Meanwhile, in Europe studios haven't always been capable of turning a profit, but have been supported by private patronage or government subsidies for the arts, and look at the results: such money turns out to be enough to keep workers employed, and in spite of limited budgets it has given us monuments of world cinema. Just look at most of Ingmar Bergman's films, for example.

Re:18%?

I don't imagine the bit torrents are tearing up Bergman flicks.

I've gotten 20 Bergman films from Bittorrent already over the last several months.

In the US anyway...

I don't live in the U.S.

anyone who knows who Ingmar Bergman is has the funds to purchase his films

No. His work is quite popular with intellectuals and students, who tend to be poor. I myself haven't been employed in six years. While I get some money here and there and have bought a few of his films, it will take years to get them all in the expensive Criterion Collection or MGM sets.

His last US filmography credit is from 1996 according to IMBD, BTW.

His film Sarabande was released in 2003.

Re:

"Doing something that is perceived as "criminal" and getting away with it is also very attractive."

It is even more attractive when doing something that is legally criminal is morally the high ground. Then you are not only gaining, but protecting others to

Re:

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.

Really? Even if there were no copyright laws and the US basically had piracy like China there w

Re:18%?

There's no way that there are 54 million people actively downloading 4GB movie files..."

well, since you backed that up quite logically...

Now, if you had read the article:
" U.S. online population"
and then noticed the head line says 25 million.
Any one of these would indicate to someone of average or greater intelligence that it's not al Americans.

Based on the actual artical, 18% seem pretty reasonable a number.
Now if broadband is at 50%(adjust for easy of math), that mean 150 million americans have
broadband. Pretty cliose to 18%.

Please. Try. To. Think.

Re:

No frickin way is it 18%.

Broadband reports [websiteoptimization.com] has US broadband penetration at 47%.

You're saying that half of all broadband users...

Woah! Check your units--the 18% is "percent of the US online population"--so that's only 18 percent of people (or households? I'm not sure) that are online.

Whereas that "penetration" number appears to be a percentage of *all* (online or not) househol

Re:18%?

You're saying that half of all broadband users are capable of downloading a bit torrent client, running it, finding divx, installing it, and getting the movie to run...

Why would you pay actual money for broadband if you didn't know how to use it?

Re:18%?

Oh, broadband isn't necessary. I downloaded a movie at 56k. I downloaded one movie, and it took me most of 2006.

Re:18%?

You're saying that half of all broadband users are capable of downloading a bit torrent client, running it, finding divx, installing it, and getting the movie to run... sure, they could be downloading quicktime movies or WMV files, but any of these combinations is equally challenging to your mom, your grandpa, and your brother in law- 1 person out of 5 is a hell of a lot of people.

Umm...it's not that hard...

Step 1: Download Bitlord.
Step 2: Download VLC Media Player
Step 3: Visit Mininova and find a tracker.
Step 4: Open file with VLC and enjoy.

But still I think your right. It's probably not 18% of all citizens, probably more like 18% of all households with broadband.

Re:18%?

we're talking about the majority of the US population, you know: the people that type in their search queries in their browser URL field because they can't tell the difference. These are the people that are confused by the big blue lowercase 'e', when internet is spelled with an 'i' ("I want to get on the internet - what? click on the lowercase e? That's totally retarded!"). They don't know how to check their hotmail account. They don't know how whether or not their computer is already hijacked. They can't tell the difference between the internet and American Online. You expect these people to start installing p2p software and start downloading files for their use (nevermind the fact that to go looking for the stuff in the first place)?

I'm suprised by the age bracket, I totally suspected it would be lower, mostly consisting of teenagers and college kids, ages 13-22. I'm 29 myself, and to be honest, with my current lifestyle, I really don't have the time to fuck around with semi-corrupt files and the arduous process of assembling multiple files from different sources, just to get a cracked copy of a computer game or a movie file. It's much more convenient to take a few bucks and buy the stuff. Why go thru all that hassle? Especially at 29 years old? Sure, when I was in college I had all the time in the world to wait for that ultra-rare mp3 to finish downloading from Germany. But I'm used to fast now and more importantly if it costs a few more bucks for the convenience, I don't mind shelling out. I've got income, and I will pay for my fast-paced (or some would just call it lazy) lifestyle. So sue me. I pay for the service, not the art.

Re:18%?

From TFA: "The study's authors didn't clarify whether "downloaded" implied illegal downloads or participation in legal services such as CinemaNow!"

It seems that the rather sensationalistic headline is contradicted by the article itself.

Not to mention that this seems like a typical Slashdot bias. Picture the reaction if one were to prefix the article with: "In a study conducted by the MPAA..." People would be falling all over themselves pointing out how the numbers have to be grossly overstated.

Either way, since the article didn't provide any information about how the study was conducted, how the 2,600 people were found, demographics, et.al., I have to believe the numbers are simply bogus. Cherry pick your starting group, and you can extrapolate to any absurd number.

We are NOT CRIMINALS

we are FREEDOM fighters.

Movies are binary encoded Information.

And Information Wants To Be Free.

It is our right and our duty.

25 Million Pirate Movies??

and I've only seen one last year! Where can I find the others? :)

Too lazy to go to the library?

Are these folks just too lazy to go to the library and rip DVDs from there? Young people today!

It's easier!

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?

Re:It's easier!

"Why ever would I goto the cinema"

Why? To enjoy the theater experience. You know, flying popcorn, being kicked by the idiot behind you, cell phones ringing, babies crying, people talking endlessly.

Thats why!

That's not all...

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.

Sampling Frame?

In a study of 2,600 Americans polled via telephone and online

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.

Re:Sampling Frame?

Hence why the summary starts out with "Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. [b]online[/b] population..."

Jealousy, That is all it is.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with $10 tickets at the theater.

Convenience

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.

Eighteen Percent?!

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.

Bullpuckies

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".

Re:

The report says "the U.S. online population", not the overall population.

I'm willing to bet that a majority of the people in whatever "the U.S. online population" is, have broadband.

Most people with dial-up don't sit there for hours surfing, looking for on

Hollywood constantly loses money

When I found out that Hollywood regularly adjusts their accounting practices [wikipedia.org] 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.

Numbers dont lie

A typical movie downloader is 29 years of age, while 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female

I am glad the summary thought best to inform us that all that are not male, are female.

Movie theaters suck

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.

"Robin Hood" effect?

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.

SneakerNet lives!!!1!

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.

movie pirate

That's right, I'm a movie pirate! And I like movies rated ARRRRRRR!!!

Results are meaningless!

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.

Re:Results are meaningless!

What is it with you people? You are not telling anyone anything they don't know.
People who analyize statistice account for all this, and in face it can be very close.

Back of envelope:
47% of americans have broadmand(call it 150 million for easy).
25 million of those are clamied to download at least one movie.

Thats about 18%.

Now most people in the US with broadmand have a listed telephone number. Yes yes I know your crowd is extremly cool people no one has one, but really you are an insignifigant statistcal abnormality at this time.

The data is not meaningless, you just have to try and understand statistics in some practical way.

Adult movies

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.

Curiosity must be a factor

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.

Good Start

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.

Think of the little guys...

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.

make the experience better or offer an alternative

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.

Re:It's Still Wrong

I doubt that any significant fraction of these 25 million people also shoplift movies out of Best Buy, which is what this is tantamount to.

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.

Re:It's Still Wrong-"/." technicalities.

Here let me point it out for you. Regardless of physicality, the attitude behind both acts is the same. It's about benefitting at the expense* of others.

Nope. One is about taking something away from someone else in order to have it yourself. The other is about benefitting by making a new copy, without harming anyone else. One requires a willingness to harm others; the other doesn't. That's why these 25 million people aren't out stealing DVDs from store shelves - they're different acts requiring a completely different attitude.

Try this on for size. Invite over to your house all the people you've "borrowed" from, and download in front of them. See how well that works out.

Without performing that experiment, I can predict how it'll turn out: they'll be upset. They'd prefer that I buy a copy from them, but unfortunately for them, they aren't morally entitled to make a sale, nor to keep me from downloading bits.

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.

Re:It's Still Wrong-"/." technicalities.

So it's perfectly ok, huh? I hate the **AA, but it's still taking someone else's work and not giving anything in return...just not right, is it?

It's not especially nice, but it's not wrong per se. You see, that work was already done for free, without anyone promising to pay for it.

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.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!

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:

The [reference.com]

Who is the real thief now?

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 ;-)

Re:It's Still Wrong

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.

Here is one of the reasons

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.

Re:Here is one of the reasons

Yeah, I find it absolutely HILARIOUS that I hadn't been threatened by the FBI until recently, when my family got together and rented some DVDs.

Think about it: When you download a movie, you get a movie. When you rent or buy a movie, you get threatened by the FBI and Interpol. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife and sell it to dumb tourists.

Re:Here is one of the reasons

I think its worthwhile outlaying pros and cons to piracy :)
Pros

• Free
• Ad Free
• Versatile
• Distributable
• Modifiable
• Abundance (I love this one the most. I know what its like to hear "Sorry no-one but you listens to/watches that, so we don't stock it")

Cons:

• Illegal
• No nice packaging (I love a good box that i can display, but sadly this is fading away a lot)

Did i miss anything?