US tunes into movie downloads
p2pnet.net News:- Some 100 million Americans are now aware of Net-based movie distribution methods, with "early-adopting males," those under 35 and "affluent households" being most attuned to this looming distribution channel – the same groups who form the core market for current movie ticket sales and movie rentals, says a new report.
"Net-based movie distribution methods" is a euphemism for the p2p networks and one of the reasons for this growing awareness is without question the inordinate amount of publicity being given to file sharing by the entertainment industry-owned MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
In late 2004, nearly one-half (47%) of Americans aged 12 and older were aware of being able to download a full-length movie, says the report, from Ipsos.
"This translates into roughly 100 million people within the current U.S. population," it goes on.
Those most likely to be know about the possibilities include males (53%), those between the ages of 12 and 34 (approximately 60%), and with those household incomes of morer $50,000 (about 50%).
"However, only a fraction of total Americans (4%) have actually downloaded a movie off of the Internet, with early indicators showing those who have done so are likely to have used non-licensed file-sharing services to acquire these movies," says the report.
"These data are evidence that Americans’ awareness of the Internet as a method of obtaining broad entertainment content is expanding," says the company’s Matt Kleinschmit.
"With the music industry struggling in the past few years to define and integrate the role of digital acquisition methods into the existing marketplace, it appears that the motion picture industry is presented with a unique opportunity to learn from the evolution of that category."
Unfortunately, the movie studios have so far confined their efforts into taping this new customer base by trying to sue them out of existence.
Be that as it may, "Specifically," Ipsos goes on, "the profile of ‘first’ movie downloaders reflect, in many ways, what we saw in the early days of music downloading – that is, they are younger, male, and those seeking technological methods of primarily free acquisition.
"It will be interesting to monitor how this develops over time, to see if online acquisition of movies mimics what we have seen in the digital music category, where fee-based downloaders have skewed to an older and more gender balanced profile."
It will indeed.
In the meanwhile, with most Americans still unaware that downloading movies is even an option, "there is a clear and immediate challenge just to promote the concept," states the report. A third (34%) of Americans 25 or older "have never heard of downloading full-length motion pictures off of the Internet," while 27% of the coveted 12- to 17-year-old market says the same.
Only 3% of total Americans say they’re "extremely" or "very" likely to download a full length motion picture off of the Internet in the next 12 months, and where only 4% have downloaded a movie, 44% have rented a movie in the past 30 days, and 37% have gone to a theatre to watch a show.
Not surprisingly, teenagers are the heaviest movie goers, says Ipsos, with 58% of 12- to 17-year olds having gone to a cinema in the past 30 days, and they’re equally as likely to have rented a movie (58%). "Teenagers’ video-renting habits are only eclipsed by the next-youngest demographic, 18- to 24-year olds, 63% of whom have rented a movie (while only 44% went to the theatre to see a film)," the study goes on. "Adults 55 and older are the least likely to have paid to see a movie in the last 30 days: less than one-fifth went to the movies (18%) or rented a video (18%)."
The report says the findings reveal movie downloading behaviour mimics early online digital music "acquisition patterns".
And the motion picture industry is copying the sue ‘em all marketing campaign conceived and developed by the music label cartel and implemented by the RIAA
However, far from driving customers to buy cartel product, it’s alienated them and opened the way for a number of independent sales and distribution outlets which are gaining a firm foothold and which represent the labels’ first serous forms of competition.
The same is likely happen in the movie industry.
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February 25th, 2005 at 4:08 am
4% my arse.. how many college students are there in the US again? how many high school students?
I’d venture to say that at least 70% of bit torrent traffic (which makes up a third of the web) is video content.. and i can tell you right now fansubs arent a big enough sector to fill that kind of bandwidth…
February 25th, 2005 at 5:02 pm
But aren’t we forgetting that the bulk of the video traffic is most likely not movies produced by the MPAA. We all know the reality. Porn is a gigantic hog of bandwidth. Just wait till they start lodging lawsuits!
February 28th, 2005 at 1:58 am
The “Sue em all” approach is not going to work and everybody knows it. It’s a little late for the music industry to recoup, but I would say that the Movie Industry has a tremedous opportunity here. I don’t forsee the huge surge in movie downloading as was the case in music downloading because most people do not have the patience to sit down on their computer and spend the time doing it. The files that we are talking about are huge! In two or three years time, this will probably change as the computers and software get better and I think the movie industry needs to get cracking if they expect to capatilize. Alienating your customer base by sueing them is not the answere.