Forget video pirates, concentrate on the "legally inclined" mainstream

Adam Turner
Saturday, 17 March 2007 09:29

Your IT - Home IT

Hardcore pirates are unlikely to go legit and the video download industry should concentrate on winning over legally inclined consumers, according market research.

US consumers are still downloading movies illegally despite the growing availability of subscription-based movie download services, according to a study conducted by market researcher Advanis Inc. Seventy nine per cent of those downloading movies are still doing so illegally, costing the industry an estimated $598 million. In Canada it's as high as 93 per cent.

"The industry can respond to this stubborn core of piracy in one of two ways," said Phil Dwyer, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Advanis. "It can spend its time and resources pursuing the pirates, and attempting to get them to change their ways, or it can put those same resources into accelerating the adoption of these services by the early mainstream consumers, who are more inclined to behave legally."

"The experience of the music industry, and the evidence of our research suggests there is a hardcore of illegal downloaders who are unlikely to change their behavior. The industry would be better advised to focus resources on migrating new, and legally inclined consumers on to these services."

Those surveyed said movie downloads should cost on average $2.59 and DVDs cost $5.98 in stores. Currently legal downloads cost around $9.99 for catalog movies and between $12.99 and $14.99 for new releases, similar to DVD prices.

The survey comes as the content industry debates abandoning digital rights management protection on files. Last month Apple head honcho Steve Jobs called on the world's four largest music companies to release songs without copy protection for distribution through Apple's iTunes online store.