AfterDawn: News

Illegal movie downloads have tripled in the UK

The history repeats itself again. The so called 'MP3 revolution' that occurred in the 90's has evolved into booming movie downloads. This is of course made possible by the increasing coverage of broadband connection networks and the suitable compression methods.

The phenomena started few years back with VideoCD and DivX formats and the trend has been towards higher quality of the downloaded video. Divx (or other MPEG-4 variant) video is combined with multi channel sound, or perhaps SVCD MPEG-2 format has been used. The increasing connection speeds and booming DVD-R drive market have made DVD copies very popular on the Internet.



The BBC reports that the number illegal movie or TV files downloads have tripled last year. But the DVD sales seem to develop quite nicely too..

An estimated 1.67 million people download illegal film or TV files, compared to 570,000 last year, the British Video Association (BVA) found.
...
The average film or TV downloader was identified as under 35 years old and male.
..
"As long as we can continue to make our traditional product attractive and future online offers affordable and easy, we hope to avoid the worst of the damage."

The BVA also reported a 61% increase in DVD sales in 2003, the format now representing 70% of the total video market.

Source: BBC

Written by: Lasse Penttinen @ 7 May 2004 11:00

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• 17 comments

• Nephilim

  D'oh!

  7.5.2004 20:04 #1

• gotisos

  Hmm I'm, curious to which country downloads, or has the most wares? Check these articles too from the register (my fav new site) and bbc (my 2nd fav news site)
  
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/07/illegal_film_downloads/
  
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3692999.stm
  

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  8.5.2004 16:13 #2

• Caligari9

  If the TV companys would actually make the vast store of programmes they own available then we wouldn't need to download ropey VHS rips. And I don't mean over-priced DVD box sets that we would watch once and then just dump on a shelf somewhere.
  And if they would show things a bit quicker we wouldn't have to get a rip done by a US viewer ("Carnivale" anyone?)

  9.5.2004 07:26 #3

• pcshateme

  most of the movies i download (i dont care we all do it- im just waiting for some snob to come and tell me that they dont- IM JUST WAITING) are rare ones that cant be found anyware, like animes, or like caligari9 said- most of the stuff people want hasnt been released, or if it has its in like a $250 20 dvd box set (see also M.A.S.H.)- but what if i only want a few episodes? what if i dont have $200 to spend on a dvd set when i only want like $20 worth of episodes?!!
  
  plus most of the dvd rips out there are in shitty quality 1 pass quicky quality divx made by morrons whoes only objective is to shrink 3 or 4 movies to a single cdr, more people need to but up SVCD Rips- we all have dsl or cable now- we dont need 2 hour movies shrunk to a hundred megs so we can donload them

  9.5.2004 09:31 #4

• Vular

  I bet the next thing to happen when bandwidth increases again will be the streaming pay per views of Wrestling, Boxing, etc. Anybody else got any predictions?

  9.5.2004 10:45 #5

• gotisos

  Your close, very close with that pay-per-view sceem, but it is going to hopefully be cheaper than pay-per-view. I read this link at my favorite new source ;)http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/04/ms_drm2_rollout/
  
  It basically says that M$ is trying to get streaming servers to all ur mobile and non-mobile computing devices, at one low monthly services fee, low my arse. After you pay the $1000 initial set up fee, and then the monthly onsite services fee, and the offsite service fee, and the I'm a greedy billionaire fee, need I go on.
  

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  9.5.2004 11:48 #6

• Ashen_Viz

  I don't personally like the idea of DL-ing movies, unless they are say, your art-house type and otherwise difficult to find in your area, but I persoannly think that tv shows area allright, I mean, we've been doing that with our VCRs (Betamax for some of your people) for years, not to mention now with DVRs and things like Tivo, which, ironically are frequently manufactured by the same parent companies who protest such use, (I'm using massive generalites now 'cause I don't really have all the facts on hand, this is off the top of my head) and are affiliated with the MPAA and RIAA. 'Here! Have a VCR! Have a CD burner, and MDR and a Cassette Deck, but don't you dare do anything with them! Just buy our recordable media for use as paperweights and coasters.' Do you think that maybe, just maybe, it's a little hypocritical to supply the burnable media, and be making loads of cash off of the skyrocketing sales of such media, but at the same time trying to nail that same sector of digital users?
  Mind you, I know what is legal and what is not,
  I am just pointing out something in this whole debate that I find personally funny.

  9.5.2004 13:11 #7

• pcshateme

  the point is EVERYONE is breaking the "law" in some sence- i mean why the hell are there guides on this site - i mean technically there for personal backups, but come on- show me a man who hasnt done something "illegal" with there burner and ill show you a liar.
  
  also if suddenly they somehow (this is completely hypotheticaly) prevent everyone from doing anything "illegal" with burners- blank media sales would fall to almost zero- the only people who would buy them would be bussnesses for backups, or people with garage bands- i mean how often do you burn your own material? like once in a while you might burn a home movie to dvd or maybe your backup files to a disc- but lets be honest- thered be no such thing as 100 cd-r or 25 dvd-r spindles.

  9.5.2004 13:44 #8

• Powa

  Exactly right pcshateme.

  9.5.2004 15:12 #9

• Jade24

  I have to admit I've downloaded a few movies but the quality has not been great and it takes so long that I get bored so I've given up but I do download a lot of tv shows - it's because the shows I like are not shown where I live or that it's like 2 years behing. I suppose if they offered something like iTunes music store for tv shows then I would consider it (cos the quality should be better) nbecause I don't want to spend $$ on a dvd boxset that I'll watch only once.

  9.5.2004 19:30 #10

• WesleyHes

  I know it all comes down to money and profit. But take a company like Sony that makes the content (movies), makes the home components to watch and listen to the content and also makes the equipment to copy the content.
  Does Sony studio actually "talk" to the division making DVD burners or designing Dual Layer burners? If copying movies was so much of a concern, wouldn't Sony's studio division shut down the DVD burner manufacturing division or force them to change their product to not be able to copy copyrighted material?
  There are all of these MAJOR electronics companies that are members of the DVD Forum and ALL of them manufacture DVD burners that can copy movie content pretty easily.
  Apparently, they are ALL about the money - some companies getting it a both ends: original copyrighted material releases and then blank media and burner sales. Most be nice! Then to top it off, they cry, "wow is me, we're losing soooo much money (made several billion but could have made a cool trillion)" and then allow the RIAA to sue their customers because the RIAA and others are losing so much money (billions in the single digits instead of double digits).
  I purchased all of my DVDs (1100+) from legitimate stores from the studios for full price. I use my burner for making back ups for traveling with my portable player because I'm very protective of my DVDs.
  I don't have time for the b@tching and moaning of large corporations that don't see an increase in sales every year over the previous one.

  10.5.2004 10:22 #11

• SiD_UK

  An estimated 1.67 million people download illegal film or TV files.....
  
  Meaning they really don't have a clue just trying to grab headlines again.

  10.5.2004 23:20 #12

• buzzoon

  " dont care we all do it- im just waiting for some snob to come and tell me that they dont- IM JUST WAITING"
  
  I don't ... because it takes too damn long! Easier to rent from Blockbuster and copy from there :-)

  12.5.2004 11:11 #13

• pcshateme

  ok- haha
  

  check out my site http://www.backupguides.vze.com for free software and illustrated guides on copying DVDs to DVD, to CD, and other copying stuff.
  http://www.devermore.net/surbrook/adaptions

  12.5.2004 11:16 #14

• Ashen_Viz

  I've got to agree about the tv eps though folks, honestly, there are a lot of good series that just weren't given a chance, but are still running in Europe, or that are too old and never converted to DVD and too rare to find on VCD and VHS (or Betamax for your folks in the UK) I get Married with Children, Simpsons, Futurama, and Fire Fly offa P2P, for movies I go to ebay or half dot com. I'd honestly rather support the industry when I can, though I usally go for independant titles. Genereal releases are just too blase` for me anyway, nowadays.
  My next major aquisition will be a multi-region dvd/svcd player, so I can actively give the finger to the MPAA.
  It's a silly idea anyway, don't you think, why restrict international sales anyway? They are just hurting themselves.
  Well, I'm just full of agnst on this topic, aren't I?
  Heh.

  22.5.2004 16:25 #15

• kslater

  Vizumi.com have a nice website for downloading movies to buy or rent legally. 100% safe and 100% legal and they are part of the Love Film group.
  
  [url=http://www.vizumi.com/]

  28.8.2007 04:09 #16

• sixdukkha

  People who receive pirated digital media (software/movies music)for their personal use may be thwarted by strict anti-piracy laws, but they are not the problem. Digital media pirates that post items to be obtained online for free aren't motivated by money. They are motivated by the challenge of piracy. They are motivated by self-actualization. they are doign what they love to do. I don't care how much money a corporation throws at that problem, it cannot be stopped. Just like laws don't stop criminals from commiting crimes, they prevent honest people from commiting crimes. The focus should be on a standardized digital format, distribution, and reasonable price that consumers would embrace.
  
  
  PS: As a side note, the first step to reasonable price would be to stop paying Cameron Diaz $20 million for a movie and then asking me to make up for it in $10 tickets and $20 dvds.

  16.6.2009 12:45 #17