Are Torrents Outpacing Legal Movie Distribution? »
With the holiday season in full swing, it is probably a fair assumption that many of you are going to be purchasing - or receiving - a movie in the coming weeks. If not, then there is a good chance that you will go out and see one this weekend or the weekend after that. Movie distribution is a monster - I have no doubt that illegal music distribution is probably more widespread, but that's only because it's typically faster to download a file that is a couple megabytes in size than it is to get one that is a few hundred megabytes (or a couple of gigabytes). With broadband continuing its slow march, that is only going to continue to change.
Of course, I understand that burning a music CD is easy because you can then take it anywhere - it's not quite the same with movies. Part of the fun is going to a theater and watching it on the big screen. But with home theater systems becoming more and more common, and most computers these days having their own DVD burners, another domino falls - illegal movie distribution is only going to become more of an issue. When you consider that even a matinee is much more expensive than it was, it won't be long before movies are as popular to download as music, if not more.
