downloading movies Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Like it or not, the option to download films and TV shows from the internet is here to stay. In fact, if things continue as they are it might not be too long before more "traditional" outlets for films and TV shows -- such as brick and mortar stores or even movie theaters -- are a thing of the past. It's already happened with the music business. Look around and tell me if you can find a Sam Goody or Tower Records in your neighborhood. You can't, and one of the biggest reasons why is due to people downloading music from online stores like iTunes.

However, all is not doom and gloom -- especially for producers of film and television shows like the major studios. If you happen to be a major studio, things look pretty good for you -- unless for some reason you haven't gotten into the online distribution business yet. If you have, this recent Variety article should make you pretty happy. If you haven't, well, it might be time to start -- that is, if you like to make money. According to the article, the next few years will find the online content delivery business exploding with record profits. Revenue in the U.S. alone from legitimate downloads of films and television programs will go from $538 million last year to $6.3 billion by 2012 -- a tenfold increase.

Some of the factors contributing to this dramatic increase are broadband penetration and changing consumer habits. Or, as Adam Thomas, a researcher at Informa, the group which released the revenue projections, puts it: "These trends are now so pronounced that the term 'social revolution' no longer seems too much of an exaggeration. With social change occurring on such a large scale, traditional media companies are being forced to change their behavior and business models to adapt their offering to consumer demand." You hear that traditional media companies? Time to change or get left behind.

An Italian cell phone company has won the right to distribute feature films on cellphones just 10 days after they premiere in theaters. Distributor Eagle Pictures previously tried to back out of their deal to provide content for Hutchinson H3G (who provide Italian cell phone services from a base in Hong Kong) once they learned of the cellular company's plan to distribute The Interpreter to Italian cell phones uncomfortably close to the picture's theatrical release. In retaliation, H3G went to court to win the right to break the window – and won. Their next move will be to offer their customers the ability to download Memoirs of a Geisha directly to their phones as early as December 27.

Italian film distributors are predictably pissed. Says Paolo Protti, chief of Anec, Italy's exhibitors organization: "We absolutely cannot accept that a firstrun movie becomes available on mobile devices 10 days after its release." He warns that the exhibitors will fight the ruling with all their might. But H3G is unlikely to back down. Their end goal? To become the first company in the world to offer firstrun films for cell phone download, with unlimited viewing for one week, for about $10.50.

To my mind, there are two questions here. A) would you pay the price of a movie ticket to be able to watch a new release on your phone, and B) if this kind of service was available in the US, what kind of effect would it have on box office and – because you can't really talk about one without the other anymore – piracy? I think $10.50 is stupid high price to be able to watch anything on a cell phone – unless there was someway to easily get the content off the phone and onto some other sort of viewing device, which, from what I've read, isn't clear. What do you think?