Pirated Movie Downloads Increased by 30% in UK, Says Study

According to Internet research firm Envisional, UK has witnessed in the last 5 years a growth in illegal movie downloads by 30%.


Apparently, factors such as the increase of broadband speeds and the improvement of file sharing methods over the years have had a big influence on this growth.
Envisional’s study found that the top five box office movies of 2010 have had about 1.4 million downloads in the UK only.


“The methods of piracy have become easier, with quicker downloads and easier to find content – anyone with broadband can do it,” said Dr David Price of Envisional.


At the top of the list with the largest number of downloads (around 200,000) is Avatar, a movie which, however, still generated box-office revenue of £98m in box in the UK last year.


The increase of downloads didn’t apply to movies only, the report further reveals – compared to 2006, in 2010 the most popular TV Shows have seen a 33% increase (around 1.24 million downloads).
“We have a big demand in this country for north American TV shows in particular…Glee and House are heavily illegally downloaded in the UK” added Price.
“We’re very eager to get the television shows as soon as they get broadcast in the US……. we often have to wait for one month or two months for those shows to be shown legitimately in the UK.”


Price also pointed out stated the need for adapting and innovating that must come from the entertainment industry in order to make illegal file sharing less appealing.
“The best way to challenge this is to give people what they want…..people are prepared to pay for downloads, so making these things legitimately available would be a huge step forward.”