Week6: Respond to content

Downloading movies... A.K.A Stealing from Hollywood.

Once upon a time, a ticket to the talkies was an exciting experience for the public. People would pay to watch a Hollywood ‘hit’ on the big screen. In today’s world, the purchasing of silver disks is just as pleasing. And, for people who aren’t quite satisfied enough, the copying of films illegally from the internet, often allow its downloader to pay little or nothing, and to be one of first in line to watch it.

The film industry, on average, loses about $3 billion dollars every year as a result of piracy (Engelman & Scott 2004, pg. 4). ‘Technology has made it possible to pirate both movies and music in little time, with little effort and with little to no quality distortion’ (Engelman & Scott 2004). With this in mind, I decided to do some research in terms of ‘highest grossing films’. And these are my findings:

In 1997, the film ‘Titanic’ made $600,779,824 in the US box office (All-Time USA Box office 2011, para.1). It wasn’t until twelve years later, in 2009, that ‘Avatar’ made $760,505,847, beating ‘Titanic’ (All-Time USA Box office 2011).



http://anonymousradioshow.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/coming-up-for-air/



I am in no position to state that within those twelve years, the rise of movie downloading had an effect or any relation to the prevention of other films grossing as much as ‘Titanic’ in box-office sales, but I am certainly curious. In 1998, the establishment of ‘Napster’, allowing people to ‘file share’ over the internet, began the phase of downloading films and audio files (Chapman 2009, para.10). By 2003, movie downloading had become such an issue that Warner Brothers, producers of the film the ‘The Last Samurai’, ‘hand-delivered copies to projection rooms, searched theatres for recording devices, installed metal detectors, searched for and seized cameras and camera phones, and hired staff to walk the aisles with night-vision goggles.’ (Engelman & Scott 2004) The film was a success, however the early web availability of the movie, emphasises the power of downloading.

It is estimated that approximately 400,000 to 600,000 movies are downloaded every day (Engelman & Scott 2004). Hollywood film producers have a struggle on their hands. Can the film industry fight the internet and it's downloader's? Or should downloading films simply be embraced? The answer is unknown, but one thing is certain… the internet’s power and influence, will result in a very difficult battle.

References:

Engelman, A & Scott, D 2004, Arrgh! Hollywood Targets Internet Piracy, Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, vol. 11 no. 1, viewed 20 September 2011, via Hein online Database, http://jolt.richmond.edu/v11i1/article3.pdf

All-Time USA Box office 2004, viewed 20 September 2011, http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross

Chapman, C 2009, The History of the Internet in a Nutshell, viewed 20 September 2011, http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/