Proliferation and Negative Distribution

Proliferation

• a rapid and often excessive spread or increase.

• the increase in film piracy has become a serious concern for the film industry.
• piracy costs the industry money and undermines the position and control of the producer.
• the proliferation of piracy is the biggest concern for the film industry.
• piracy referred to as "negative distribution", and is illegal but very difficult to control.

Negative Distribution

• films being distributed/shared illegally.

A report for Motion Picture Association (all the big studios) found that

• they lost $6.1 billion a year.
• the industry itself lost $18.2 billion.
• of the $18.2 billion, $7.1 billion was due to internet piracy.

New technology has made piracy easier.

Everyone has the ability to do this because of convergence of technology and the affordability of this.

The control moves from the institution to the audience.

Smaller companies are affected more - they can not afford the losses.


Reasons for film piracy:

• Cheaper way of accessing the film
• It is easy to do for the consumers
• Quicker/faster way of accessing the film
• Accessible from the comfort of your own home
• Because of the poor quality of many films (paying to see a rubbish film would be a waste)
• Bootleggers make money
• Search engines (torrents) (results for piracy come up on the first page of search engine)
• It doesn't appear to be a victimless crime
• The image film companies have of being very rich is undermined
• Disengagement from cinema when there are so many other films of entertainment
• For the fun of it

What are the industry doing to tackle it?

• Taking legal action against illegal download sites
• Prosecuting bootleggers
• Encouraging consumers to use access sites such as Netflix
• Working with search engines (e.g. Google), to change availability and profile of illegal download sites
• Making films available more quickly
• Advertising via exhibition platforms (creating awareness) (e.g. the "Piracy Ad" on film adverts)

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"The Hobbit" was the most pirated film of 2013, with 8.4 million people downloading it using BitTorrent networks.

"Django Unchained" took second place in the list, with 8.1 million downloads.

"Iron Man 3", the top grossing film of the year, also appeared on the list.

"The Hunger Games Catching Fire" did NOT feature on the list.

List of most pirated films of 2013:

1. The Hobbit
2. Django Unchained
3. Fast and Furious 6
4. Iron Man 3
5. Silver Linings Playbook
6. Star Trek Into Darkness
7. Gangster Squad
8. Now You See Me
9. The Hangover Part 3
10. World War Z

"The Pirate Bay", a file sharing site, has had to change its name six times in a bid to get around the site-blocking moves from several courts around the world order internet server providers (ISPs).
This site saw an increase in uploads of 50% during the past year with 2.8m files being listed.


Digital sales of video grew by 40% in 2013, helping to offset a 6.8% decline in sales of physical formats. This was helped by services like Spotify, Netflix and ITunes.

The overall UK music, video and games market was worth £5.4 billion in 2013, up 4% on 2012's total of £5.1 billion.