The Consumer's Dilemma: Cinema vs. Movie Downloads

In January this year, a book called The Pirate's Dilemma was published, written by Matt Mason. In it, Mason argues that piracy should be regarded as another kind of business model, one that exposes the inefficiencies in the existing market and acts as a catalyst for progress and innovation.

If pirates are prospering, he argues, it is usually because they have responded to changing consumer demands and are offering them services and conveniences that the original copyright holders are not, or will not. If, then, copyright holders want to take back their share of the market, they need to offer the same services and better; they need to give consumers good reason not to turn to piracy. The movie industry, of course, is constantly crying foul of the pirates - so what can it do to protect DVD sales and box-office receipts? What does it have to offer that an illegal movie download doesn't?

Arguably, the movie industry's greatest weapon against the pirate's free movie downloads is the cinema going experience itself - so let's examine the relative merits of going to the cinema versus downloading:

Advantages of going to the cinema

• It's an event. Executing a few mouse-clicks is never going to seem as special as picking something you really want to see and making the effort to go out and see it. Furthermore, spending money to do so has the psychological effect of making it seem more special - if it wasn't special, why would you have spent money on it?
  


• Exclusivity. That might be overstating it, but still if you're seeing something at a cinema, you're one of the first people to see it, and to see it as it was intended to be seen.
  


• Escapism. Sitting in the dark with surround-sound is a world away from that office chair in front of your computer screen; particularly if you work at that computer, too. And when you emerge from the cinema to find that day has turned into night, it really feels like you're returning from somewhere else; any amount of time could have passed; it could even be tomorrow.
  


• The social element. There is something so different about watching a movie in the company of others, even if you don't know them - it's a shared experience. When you're one of a hundred or more people all laughing at the same joke you feel part of something, that you're not alone. In fact, your response is generally heightened by the presence of other people; scary becomes scarier, funny becomes funnier. As for those discussions with friends on the way home, aren't they sometimes more interesting than the movie itself?
  


• State-of-the-art technology. Who has a computer system or home-cinema set-up capable of replicating the full cinema experience? And just say that you do, what resolution is your download? Put it on a screen bigger than the average computer monitor and chances are the picture will leave much to be desired. Assuming you're even techie enough to know how to make it show on anything other than your monitor?
  


• Stalled downloads. They're the equivalent of queuing for an age outside Screen 1, only to find that once you've been told you can go in, no matter how hard you try, the bloody door won't open. Unlike downloading 99% of a film only for it to irretrievably stall, that just never happens. You don't find yourself waiting outside for an utterly unknowable and indeterminate amount of time, either.
  


• You can't download popcorn. Seriously, you just can't.

Advantages of downloading

• Convenience. You don't have to leave the house. You don't have to queue for tickets. You can watch your film whenever you like. Sometimes, you don't even have to wait until a film's been released in your own country.
  


• Choice. That interesting art-house flick that just came out on limited release, won't be coming anywhere near Stafford, say, so how else are you going to see it? And never mind the current releases, you've got practically the whole history of cinema to choose from online.
  


• Cost. At least �5 per ticket, plus the cost of getting to the cinema, and maybe some snacks and drinks. Or, free. No contest, is it?
  


• No waiting. To the consternation of everyone else, films still tend to be released first in America, usually some while before they reach anywhere else. Evidently, some Americans think this is unfair too, judging by the number of new releases available to download even before they've left US cinemas.
  


• An unrestricted view. At home, no-one ludicrously tall, wearing a hat, or with unfeasible hair is ever likely to sit right in front of your monitor (unless you have a very odd cat). Neither will there be any backrest jogglers. Or arm-rest hogs. Or talkers. In fact, there doesn't have to be anyone in the room more likely to annoy you than yourself.
  


• No ads or trailers. Of course, some people like the trailers, but for many it might be considered an advantage.
  


• Try before you buy. Still prefer the cinema experience, but fed up of throwing good money after bad movies? Check one out as a download first, and if it's any good go and see it in its full glory.
  


• The Tom Cruise consideration. (Or insert own source of cinematic irritation). Download for free, and rest easy in the knowledge that you're not financially complicit in the torture of innocent moviegoers.

Looking at that list, it's pretty apparent that while watching pirated downloads in many ways fails to top a visit to the cinema, movie downloads do have their own advantages. It's probably for this reason that the movie industry has started, all too slowly and restrictively, to embrace the technology. Or at least reluctantly hold its arms out with a slightly worried expression on its face.

But if it just had faith in the public's apparently unshakeable love of cinema-going (box office receipts certainly don't appear to have been hit by piracy), perhaps the industry could truly embrace innovations such as simultaneous releases across all territories, Long Tail retailing of its back catalogue and niche products, ad-supported free downloads and streaming, fast and affordable paid-for downloads, releasing the first half hour of movies as tasters for the undecided? well, there are just all sorts of revenue streams open to any studio that dares to be adventurous.

As for downloads versus cinema: there's no reason consumers shouldn't embrace both; once the move industry decides to.

Criminal Movies. Criminal Records

I'm a criminal. There. I've said it. In fact, I may even be a terrorist. Perhaps that has you intrigued? Does it make you eager to read on? Are you wondering whether I feel remorse? How about whether I can justify my actions? Or would you like me to, for God's sake, just stop asking these annoying and presumptuous questions, and tell us how many people you've killed, already? I haven't killed anyone. Sorry. I haven't injured anyone either. Not even a paper-cut. In this broadband-enabled age, though, terrorism doesn't have to be nearly as hands-on an occupation as it used to be. Thankfully. Because as well as being someone who sits on his increasingly fat arse typing all day, and consequently wouldn't graduate from even the Cornish Liberation Army's boot camp, I'm actually a bit of a pacifist. Yep, I abhor violence. Except, perhaps, against Michael Flatley. There are always acceptable exceptions. And Celine Dion. She really should be stopped before it's too late. But besides them, yep, I'm pacifist. Sorry to let you down.

Still, pacifist or not, I am a terrorist. Quite definitely.

No, really. There's no getting around the fact. I've even committed a terrorist act - Hollywood says so: I downloaded a movie. For free. Just the once; but piracy funds terrorism, remember? I'm the terrorist equivalent of a passive smoker.

Bit of an anticlimax that, wasn't it? But if you're a regular visitor of the multiplex you're probably used to them. Piracy funds terrorism. Hollywood funds mediocrity. Not morally equivalent, but as statements, equally true?

I don't know, but I'd be more inclined to argue with the first one. And argue I shall.

ME: Oi, statement! You're not true.
STATEMENT: Oh yeah?
ME: Well you're not. Not entirely.
STATEMENT: I am! (PAUSE) Are you starting?

Well, that's not getting us very far, and as a pacifist, no, I'm not starting. So let's try another approach: anecdotal evidence. But first a quick critique of the above scene: At first the plot seems slight, but the statement's unnecessary aggression is the key point. The statement is pure overreaction. Still, the dialogue's a bit lame.
Now, on with the anecdotal evidence.

For the time being, let's switch tracks to music piracy and the days of home taping: back in the 80's and early 90's it was killing music, apparently. Not that that seemed very difficult to believe in an era that contained solo records by Phil Collins. Or entirely unwelcome.

It must have been about 1989 or 1990 that I discovered the music section of the library near my secondary school. It was a revelation: suddenly a world of possibilities was right in front of me. Well, musical possibilities; but better a world of musical possibilities than a single oyster, which seems to be the usual alternative. I gathered up as many likely looking cassettes as my meagre pocket money would stretch to, and was soon at home, happily lost in music.

New music. Sounds I hadn't heard before, and would want to hear again. And again. And again. Certainly more often than a month's loan would allow. But how? Thankfully, I had a new ghetto-blaster (as we embarrassingly called the things), with two cassette decks and high-speed dubbing. And a pile of TDK-90s: some blank, some containing music I'd recorded off the radio and no longer wanted. If I wasn't a pirate already (and I guess I was), then I certainly was by the time that month had ended. Not that I knew.

By the end of my teens, I must have had a few hundred copied albums, had probably borrowed half as many again, and I might even have copied the odd copy for someone else. I was also well aware, by that time, that my frequent copyings had not been strictly legal. But the thing was, who had they hurt?

Certainly not TDK, my favourite brand of cassettes, nor Duracell, whose products powered my walkman, nor JVC who'd made it, and the one before that. Not the artists whose albums I couldn't, anyway, have afforded to buy, and who at least got a small lending royalty from the library. Not the ones whose music I liked so much that I had to have the real thing - photos, artwork, lyrics. And definitely not the many artists who, since I have had money of my own, have benefited and will benefit from the music obsession that all that taping helped to nurture - I now have hundreds of CDs, and as for all the gigs I've attended?

Of course, things could have been a bit different.

These days, I would probably have been one of those kids sued by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for file-sharing. Would I have gone on to pour thousands of pounds into the music industry? No. I doubt it. And I probably wouldn't be listening to music while writing this either. And what does that say about current anti-piracy methods?

To be fair, the music industry does seem to be starting to catch on to the idea of the Long Tail. Slowly. But what of the movie industry?

The movie I downloaded was a film called Ariel, by the Finnish director Aki Kaurism�ki. It's not widely available on DVD in England; at least not without paying way over the odds or learning enough Finnish to navigate cheaper stockists. Believe me, I've googled it. In fact, google it and you'll find torrent listings before you'll find an IMDb entry. (These terrorists are getting very brazen, aren't they? Not to mention clever, funding their operations through free downloads and adverts that barely cover their operating costs).

As for the film: thoroughly recommended if you like deadpan laconic gloom. In fact, I told a Finnish friend how much I liked it and now have five more Kaurism�ki films - all on DVD, and all actually paid for. So wouldn't you say that my downloading actually made money for the film industry?

Perhaps, genuine piracy does fund terrorism, - I don't know, I'm not an investigative reporter - but not all piracy. In fact, free movie downloads, like home-taping, might be helping keep an industry afloat. A movie download isn't necessarily a lost sale: most of the time it just lets someone see something they never would have done. And where does that lead? To a love of a certain director, a certain actor, sometimes even a writer. To future DVD purchases, future ticket sales, and, if the movie was any good, to internet buzz. Hollywood runs on hype. And what better hype-generator is there than the internet?

Actually, maybe that's what Hollywood's really worried about: if we have advance warning of its expensive turkeys, it'll have to start making better films. And about time too.

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