Movie Online Distribution and Piracy

The movie industry has greatly evolved since the invention of commercial use of the Internet. Before the 2000’s the Internet was very slow, even in metropolitan areas and was used mostly for reading and sending e-mails. Also not very many people in rural areas could receive the Internet due to logistics. Today, however, most people in the United States, even in some of the most remote and secluded areas. They have satellite internet, cable internet that uses fiber optics, as well as dial-up, which is a technological dinosaur today. This faster, widely available Internet has directly led to movies to be streamed and downloaded to computers, HDTVs, and gaming consoles today.

Napster in the late 90’s and early 2000’s was the early norm for music piracy. If a person wanted a song, they could most likely download it from Napster. The recording industries spearheaded by Metallica, filed a lawsuit against them and won, thus shutting down Napster. This was the beginning stage of piracy with the RIAA attempting to shut piracy sites down. Today music is still pirated, but so are movies as well. Almost any movie can be found on a torrent site such at thepiratebay.org, mininova, or bittorrent. Movie downloads are much larger files and take much longer to download than a song or CD. Movie studios have gone the RIAA route and sued individuals as well as ISPs to attempt to curb movie piracy.

With the increased popularity of digital downloads and faster Internet speeds, movies became a new medium to get the digital download treatment. Today, Apple sells all sorts of movies and TV shows as downloads on their iTunes store. They rent them as well. Netflix also streams movies, but they also send the physical DVD in the mail as well. Netflix even streams movies to Playstation 3, X-Box 360, and Wii consoles. They even stream to some HDTVs. Both of these companies have proven to be quite successful with digital downloads. They are destroying brick and mortar stores such as Hollywood Video and Blockbuster, which have been the movie rental industry giants for years. Blockbuster has recently tried to copy Netflix’s services with streaming movies and sending movies in the mail as well. Even though they have been “the movie rental place” for years, they lag far behind Netflix today.

What is the future of these brick and mortar stores? Many industry leaders believe that streaming and digital downloads is the future of movie rentals. Red box rental kiosks are another alternative to brick and mortar stores, and have proven to be quite popular. The fact is that the movie rental business is changing. Sarah McBride from NPR.org agrees saying, “The way people rent movies is changing. Many people stop at rental kiosks inside grocery stores. Many get movies online. Blockbuster's storefront model can seem old-fashioned, especially within the entertainment industry.” So it seems that the future of movie rentals is in online streaming and DVDs by mail, which will be crucial for Blockbuster to adapt to if they want to stay afloat.