Americans romance with Hollywood is slowly moving from the silver screen to the small screen. As the movie industry gains ground through Internet distribution a new study finds consumers becoming more comfortable with downloading films.
According to Solutions Research Group, 32 million Americans ages 12 and over have downloaded a full-length movie and that 20 million are regular users having downloaded a film in the last month.
The study says that an overwhelming number (80%) of movie downloaders only use peer-to-peer file-sharing sites. Only 40 percent believe that downloading a copyrighted movie from the Internet is a serious offense. While 78 percent believe that stealing a DVD from a store is a very serious offense.
“There is a Robin Hood effect- most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don’t think of movie downloading as a big deal,” commented Kaan Yigit, Study Director.
The study also examined the profile of movie -download users. Fifty-six percent had watched a DVD on a PC at some point and 29 percent had viewed a DVD on a PC within the last month. Twenty-five percent of respondents have watched a streaming television show on their PCs.
The average movie downloader is 29 years of age and has 16 titles stored on their computer. Some 63 percent of movie downloaders are male, while 37 percent are female.
Yigit added: “The current crop of ‘download to own’ movie services and the new ones coming into the market will need to offer greater flexibility of use, selection and low prices to convert the current users to their services-otherwise file-sharing will continue to thrive.”
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Mike is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
