About one in four Internet surfers around the world has downloaded a pirated movie from cyberspace, the Motion Picture Association of America said July 8, based on a survey the movie trade group conducted with the Online Testing Exchange.
But the trade group also said the illegality of downloading pirated movies kept more Netizens from doing it, with a majority of non-downloaders surveyed saying they would download if it wasn't against the law.
The United States Netizens who did so proved to be 24 percent of those surveyed by the MPAA and the OTE, and that wasn't even close to the estimated leaders of the pack – Korea, where 58 percent of those surveyed said they had downloaded movies from cyberspace. The U.S. came in third, just behind France (27 percent of those surveyed), with the rest of the top eight being Italy and Britain (tied at 20 percent), Germany (19 percent), Australia (18 percent), and Japan (10 percent).
But the MPAA said that not only did a majority of those surveyed say they'd continue pulling movies off the Internet (56 percent of respondents), almost two out of every 10 downloaders were likely to begin downloading movies in the near future.
The MPAA said these figures showed an impact on active moviegoing and legitimate moviebuying, especially in Korea, "where nearly one in three people who pirate movies are going to the cinema less frequently than in the past" and where "an alarming" 52 percent of those surveyed said they bought movies far less often now.
The trade group is calling for, among other things, mitigating the downloading time barrier with the spread of broadband connections, since downloaders surveyed said they would download more if the downloads took less time.
The MPAA and supporters have insisted that Internet downloading of movies has cost the movie industry billions in lost revenues.
