digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About

Study Shows Consumers Don't Care About Downloading Illegal Films

news.digitaltrends.com — A new research study from the Solutions Research Group finds American consumers are tuning into downloadable films...and don't consider illegal downloads a serious offense.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 25, 2007

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

170 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • jls777, on 10/12/2007, -4/+151They just now figured this out?
  • kuj007, on 10/12/2007, -1/+85You might want to try "Saving Private Ryan" instead... I heard it was much better quality.

    HTH!
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+83Most people would have little trouble justifying the practice of shoplifting, if they had access to a device that cloned the item on the store shelf, left the original where it was, and put the cloned copy into their bag. All they'd have to worry about is security guards watching the store aisles through surveilance cameras.

    The device exists now: it's called a COMPUTER. And you don't even have to leave your house to do this. But you do still have to worry about "security guards", who use a slightly different way to conduct surveillance.

    This is why people have no problem justifying movie downloads, because that's what the act of downloading movies really boils down to in the minds of people.
  • Akaji, on 10/12/2007, -1/+71In other news, Sony announced new measures taken today to prevent legal buyers from enjoying their products.
  • ezflip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+70I don't steal my DVD's, I make back up copies of the video stores' DVD's.
  • sobriquet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+68A poor quality copy is a poor quality copy. You can get everything up too 1080p videos now, if you know where to look.
  • goerg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+68i dunno but...in germany you can get less punished for raping a 12 year old girl then downloading a movie...strange huh?
    maybe because the movie industrie got a bigger lobby then the 12 year old girl. doesn't this fact make you think?
  • cbbspike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+56I prefer to do what I call "distributed backup system" or DBS. Basically I make a copy of a movie that I own. Then I post it to Newsgroup, other people download my copy and keep it in their HD, whenever I need my backup I can just ask them for it back. It is a pretty amazing system, because I have to spend 0 dollars in extra storage space to keep the backup. I do ask of them not to watch my copy of the movie, because that would be wrong, if they have not paid for it.
  • subterfu9e, on 10/12/2007, -0/+51Am I the only one who doesn't go to the cinema unless if it's a damned good movie?
  • ryansebiz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+47Another study shows that consumers absolutely love waiting in line at the movie theatre, paying $20 for tickets, another $20 for two drinks and popcorn, dealing with underpaid high school staff and having to sit through a theatre full of rude and obnoxious people who talk the entire time, keep opening their bright cell in a dark theatre, leave their cell on letting it ring and throughout the film.

    I'll stick with Pirate Bay.
  • fishbert, on 10/12/2007, -1/+40You don't steal DVDs... because copyright infringement is not theft, it's copyright infringement.
  • clickwir, on 10/12/2007, -1/+40"don't consider illegal downloads a serious offense."

    It's not.

    You download something that you weren't going to buy anyway, nothing has been lost. No product is missing, they don't have one less they can sell. No one is out of a job.

    You download something that you were going to pay for, that's bad. But it's not a "serious offense". Copying something that would have only cost $15-20 anyway, is not serious. You steal a pair of shoes from a store, lets say $50, how many people consider that a serious offense? Not me. It's not "right" but it's not serious either. Now if you go into a store and jack a TV and run out with 3 accomplices, knocking people over, that's an offense. But still not serious.

    RIAA/MPAA love to inflate the numbers.
  • Joshua1211r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+40How about instead of paying millions for this study.. Give me half and I would have reported the same 8 years ago?...
  • baxtermaddux, on 10/12/2007, -3/+40can i make backup copies of your backup copies. for educational and research purposes of course
  • cru99, on 10/12/2007, -3/+38To be honest, most of the movies these days are crappy, and I don't want to see them at all, whether legally or illegally.
  • Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+33I guess it's time for another round of mandatory trailers featuring stuntmen whining about movie downloads. I know they stopped me in my tracks the last time.
  • spartanfox, on 10/12/2007, -4/+32And new shocking research indicates you failed in your attempt at humor.
  • themarq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+29Yeah this is an issue you hear from a lot of people. "I tried it once and it was a crappy version (cam version, low res, no sound etc...) and they never try it again. Fact is, sobriquet has it right. I regularly download hi quality (HD) with 5.1 sound.
  • himay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28don't forget:

    - waiting months for movies to be released
    - having key scenes edited out in DVD releases (ricky bobby DVD is missing 2 scenes from theatrical release)
    - having movie music re-scored due to licensing agreements (which has delayed MTV's The State release for ages)
    - being denied access to films from other countries for seemingly no apparent reason (Shawn of the Dead took how long to get to the US?)
    - sitting through commercials on DVDs

    good stuff, hollywood! Thanks!
  • MediaShipper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+26If shoplifting is a serious offense, then what is murder?
  • Zoplax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Hey don't forget whiny children, crying babies, hairstyles that block your view, and body odor.

    I'd gladly wait and grab a DVDrip.
  • Altotus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Some of the movies available for download are actually higher quality than the DVD they were ripped from. I don't mean audio-visual quality, of course, but the fact that they don't force you to sit through 10 minutes of advertisements and media propaganda films.

    My kids (3 and 5) have a copy of the film "Robots" at home, but there's so much crap at the beginning of the film that they don't care about and can't skip over that they simply get frustrated and have decided it's not worth watching (not that I mind them laying off of TV and all). Personally, I find all that stuff annoying to. The rips you download don't have that. They actually represent a substantial improvement over the product available for purchase.
  • nixr, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27Breaking News: Bear ***** found in wooded area.
  • Krakn3Dfx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21I'm sure the MPAA will love this...

    The problem for the big money makers is a fraction of people downloading movies for free when they want those people to walk into Target and pay $20-$30 for it.

    The problem for those people downloading the movie is that they don't want to pay $20-$30 every time they need to buy a new format of a movie they enjoy, and they don't want the hassle that comes with watching a DVD that they actually buy when it comes to the mandatory 20 seconds of watching a sign warning to buy the movie you just bought.

    I have little patience for shoving copyright laws down the throats of people who are actually buying the material they watch, while people who download the same material "illegally" have a nice copy that comes with the warnings and DRM cut out. Everyone wants to know why DVD sales are down.

    People are tired of the *****, and as long as the movie industry keeps building a Styrofoam wall around their intellectual property that anyone can break through instead of offering quality entertainment at a reasonable price, they're fighting a losing battle.
  • Rikkochet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Half the movies I own I reripped to REMOVE the special features and menus..
    Doesn't it make your blood boil when you're FORCED to watch 1 0seconds of the FBI warning (in French and English on Canadian DVDs, to boot!) and then FORCED to watch commercials and trailers on some DVDs because those ***** DISABLED the ability to skip or jump to the main menu?
  • dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Isn't the burden on the people who *distribute* stolen media, rather than those who *steal* it?

    It's not your or my responsibility to ensure I obtained a legal copy of anything. At least that's what the FBI warnings at the beginning of movies say.
  • catalysis, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22@ilyag

    Did you notice that 22% don't consider stealing a DVD from a store to be a serious offense?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Most people see it as being no different than recording a tv show or movie off tv, in a sense that may be illegal as well, but people have been doing it since the VCR came out.

    I'm more than happy to pay for a movie, i have a great collection of purchased DVDs, i determine which to buy based on how much i enjoy the movie, i determine how much i like the movie by downloading it and watching it.

    If it isn't a great movie, i'll usually keep the copy, if its a great movie i throw out the disc and buy it.

    I do go to the theatres as well, but only if i've heard really good things about the movie, then if i enjoy it i may download it until the DVD releases.

    the problem is people seeing it as stealing, i see it as personal quality assurance, is it worth moy dollar, but of course, the MPAA want you to buy ***** movies without watching it, so they can just make ***** movies instead of quality movies
  • TheTinman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15with having to pay $10.50 for a ticket and having to sit through 10 minutes of commercials (commercials, not previews), no you aren't the only one.
  • Dumbledorito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Wait. People are turning INTO downloadable film? Crap. I don't want to be pirated. :(
  • Slovenian6474, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I had these people behind me once that were running down the isle and wrestling. These weren't kids either.
  • hobbers, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17"I guess it's time for another round of mandatory trailers featuring stuntmen whining about movie downloads. I know they stopped me in my tracks the last time."

    The funny thing is, once the movie hits DVD, I would guess that all of the people who actually made the movie (stunt actors, set builders, camera people, sound people, production assistants, etc) have already been paid. I doubt they manage hundreds of contracts for hundreds of people that worked on a single movie, and tie their income to the movie's income. And these people jump from movie to movie throughout the year. So in a given year, they might generate half a dozen or more contracts. It just doesn't make sense.

    So whether you steal the movie and download the DVD online, or buy the DVD legally from a store, it probably doesn't affect them one bit. The only people who likely have contracts that tie their income to the movie's income are the studio executives and the big name actors. Heck, even the extras and minor actors probably just get paid a flat fee. So it's the executives and a handful of lead roles that are complaining about making $5 million a piece instead of $6 million a piece off this single movie.

    Cry me a river.
  • JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -11/+25I just watched "Shaving Ryan's Privates" in 1080p. You could see every ingrown hair, razor nick, and herpes lesion. The quality was truly breathtaking.
  • TheFinestShadow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I just find this line humorous:

    "Most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don't think of movie downloading as a big deal."

    Yeah, well as long as Hollywood's been around here in the US, celebrities have been gaining wealth for the purpose of only using it to buy lavish houses and cars. They don't have a lack of money, trust me. Turn on VH1 for five minutes while watching some show about how celebrities live their lives. You will be disgusted.

    Stealing my ass. It won't really hurt if those celebrities making those $20 million paychecks suffer to some middle-class downloaders struggling to maintain an existence in that class, am I right?

    Yeah, we're DEFINIELY stealing.[/sarcasm]
  • MikeToth1001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I don't believe it. Do some research. WHOIS is your friend. This "research group", which is supposed to have been around since 1996, but registered the domain in 1998, has a Canadian web hosting address. They've released a few other "studies", which pretty much say exactly the same thing as this one. All of the studies that I could find were either music or movie related.

    My opinion. It's a front for the MPAA/RIAA.
  • g30ph, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11THEY should PAY US for sitting through some of that garbage.
  • HeatVision, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10@Salgat

    I think most downloaders view it as the equivalent of a movie rental, since most delete the movie after watching it (since most movies aren't worth owning or taking up hard drive space).
  • g30ph, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12No, chatrooms look like this:

    HyooGrekshun: press 69 to Cyber with me!
    Hottie1988: 69
    IswallowLoads: 69
    Jizzlubber: horney 15/f looking for horney guys!
  • themarq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Absolutely. And not because of the cost either. Mostly it's jackasses with cell phones that have driven me from the theatre, not to mention the amature commentator. I took my wife to see Happy Feet over the holidays and the mouth breather behind me said "he's so cute" about 50 times and not in a whisper.

    So now it's all home watching for me. I might make an exception for especially "good looking" movies, like The 300 or the next Spider-Man. However for the most part if I can download a hi quality version of the movie while it's still in theatres I'd rather watch from the comfort of my own couch.
  • radiofrequency, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11You paid for the content in VHS format.
    You paid for the content in DVD format.

    Now you're supposed to pay for the same content in HD DVD or Blu Ray format?

    The only criminals here are groups like the MPAA and RIAA which have - going on for almost a century now - demanded that "we the people" repay for entertainment programming merely as a result of a change in physical media format.
  • BashiBazouk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Sure there is: Snuff films and kiddy porn. Very illegal.
  • Pix869, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11A research study wasn't really necessary.

    Just find yourself a nice random Yahoo chatroom.

    Ask "Hey, anyone think downloading movies is a serious offense?"

    Then leave when the flame war ensues.
  • williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@vodaj007

    The MPAA buys laws. We ignore those laws. They deserve a lot worse for buying the laws in the first place. They are lucky to just get off with not getting their money.
  • MediaShipper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9What's a cinema dear boy?
  • HardwareLust, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Maybe because downloading movies isn't a serious offense, and anyone with the tiniest shred of common sense knows this already?
  • hobbers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Ugh, I've downloaded a few "cam" movies in the past. Complete Waste Of Bandwidth. You're not even watching the movie. It looks more like a movie about a guy going to the theater to watch the movie that you want to see.

    I also second the "download to preview" comment. So much of the stuff they produce is complete crap. And once you buy it and open it, some places will only replace the movie if it's defective. No returns, refunds, exchanging for another movie, etc. I've actually watched DVDs where we said "yep, this is going in the trash". I would like to avoid wasting money and contributing to our garbage dump.
  • d03boy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Can someone define "serious offense" before everyone jumps to conclusions? To me a "serious offense" would be murder. Where exactly can we draw the line here?
  • timxpx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10people still frequent chat rooms?
  • williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7One that hasn't been "rated" by the MPAA cartel. You don't want Americans watching just anything. They might get ideas.
  • Altotus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7There's a lot of out-of-print content you can download that are not available by any means. You can't even contact the original publisher and get a copy because they don't deal with individuals. If you are to have the content at all, an illicit copy is the only way.

    I'd point out too that I think that downloading broadcast content, so long as it is redistributed in its original form without editing, is not a serious offense. It's been broadcast. At one time, everyone on the planet had access to it and it's still floating about in the ether of space. If you can time-shift a broadcast legally, having someone do it for you ought also be legal (and it is, actually), and if time-shifting is legal from a friend, then can it be any less so from a casual acquaintance or stranger. In the uncut form, advertisements are still intact (if there were any) and if the redistributor receives compensation, clearly the bulk of that ought to go back to the original producer, but is it "serious" if it happens? I think not.
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 100 of 170 discussions

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.