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Movie Industry revenue booming despite piracy

5 May 2005 10:04 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 9 comments

If you can recall, the Motion Picture Association of America has been filing lawsuits against file sharers all over the United States and pushing for BitTorrent sites to be shut down because they claimed they were losing potentially billions of dollars in revenue. However, Hollywood had an amazing year in 2004. Worldwide revenues from cinema tickets, videos and DVD sales, as well as television rights, reached a whopping $44.8bn (�24bn) last year, up 9 percent from 2003.

Record DVD sales were the cause of the massive profits, with a 46 percent rise in sales worldwide (14 percent in United States). The only fall was ticket sales outside the United States, which fell by a tiny 1 percent. These figures have come from the Motion Picture Association. The MPAA's legal action Internet piracy began at the end of 2004.

Several BitTorrent sites have been shut down ever since then and many file sharers have been sued in the United States. If any damage is to be done to the movie industry's revenue in 2005, perhaps they have only themselves to blame for bringing movie downloads right to the media and alerting more and more people about it.

Source:
Guardian

Permalink to this article

More MPAA lawsuits filed (3 August 2005)

EliteTorrents shut down by U.S. customs and FBI (25 May 2005)

Police officers under investigation for MPAA payoffs (22 April 2005)

DVDR-Core owner set to stand up to MPAA (16 March 2005)

MPAA files more lawsuits against movie and TV series sharers (25 February 2005)

LokiTorrent shut down by MPAA (10 February 2005)

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nonoitall (Member) 5 May 2005 12:22
Quote: If any damage is to be done to the movie industry's revenue in 2005, perhaps they have only themselves to blame for bringing movie downloads right to the media and alerting more and more people about it. I couldn't agree more. They're digging their own grave. Think about it: 1. They're suing their own customers for liking their content. 2. They're giving themselves bad publicity by doing so. 3. They're letting more people who knew nothing about these other methods of obtaining media know that they exist. 4. They're causing more people to turn to other sources of media because of reasons #2 and #3 put together. Pretty bad start on their fight against P2P. [ + quote]
mikey_ray (Inactive) 6 May 2005 4:57
well the movie industry will say the reason they are making more money is cause they are suieng-- theyre dumb [ + quote]
GrayArea (Member) 6 May 2005 11:37
Can U say NAPSTER? Or, "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it". [ + quote]
GrayArea (Member) 6 May 2005 12:07
And another thing... Maybe some people BUY DVDs because they can preview downloaded copies, or they might see a downloaded version at a friend's house then go out and buy the DVD. If I ran a studio I'd make legal "low rez" versions of my movies freely available on the net as a promotional tool to help sell DVDs. I'd bleep the "bad" words and blur the naked bits (plus float a studio logo in the lower right corner of the picture) so my studio would not get in trouble with parents etc... and to give others another reason in addition to better picture quality to buy the DVDs. It's a no-brainer. [ + quote]
PALToNTSC (Junior Member) 13 May 2005 2:08
it's illegal to download movies over P2P???? u can be touched by the gouverment or just the website???? same question for the songs [ + quote]
nonoitall (Member) 13 May 2005 11:50
Um, ya. Chances of you getting caught just for downloading are virtually non-existant though and even if you upload thousands of copyrighted files, chances are still very slim that they will do anything to you. [ + quote]
nonoitall (Member) 13 May 2005 11:55
Forgot to mention that that's assuming you're in the US. In some countries it's not illegal to download - only to upload. No matter what though, it's still extreamly difficult to catch someone download copyrighted material, unless you are the uploader (and if the uploader is the RIAA or MPAA and tries to sue you, they're in bigger trouble than you are for sharing copyrighted material in the first place). [ + quote]
PALToNTSC (Junior Member) 13 May 2005 12:54
Hay everyone! Wanted to know if there has been any arrest in the United States or Canada for people downloading MP3's or movies over the net and the P2P? Has anyone actually heard or read any actual facts that people go to jail or pay a fine? I'm curious to know cuz people talk about it but do we have any facts to it? Tell me your comments.... PEACE OUT! thanx nonoitall for your comment [ + quote]
nonoitall (Member) 13 May 2005 16:58
The RIAA/MPAA would have you think that many people have been, but I don't think anyone's been sued or arrested for downloading yet - at least not successfully. Even in the case of uploaders, the best the RIAA/MPAA can usually do is a "John Doe" lawsuit, which is a suit against your IP address. Most ISPs protect your privacy, though and don't tell them who the IP address belongs to, which pretty much deflates their whole case against said uploader. [ + quote]