Study: 20% Download Movies

Music may be the king of the download world, but movies are a fast rising prince. According to new research from Solutions Research Group, nearly 20% of web users have downloaded movies.

by Kristina Knight

The report is based on a survey from 2006 which asked 2,600 Americans how much music and how many movies they had downloaded. Music downloads were, of course, the top with 30% of respondents saying they had downloaded one song from the Internet. 11% said they had downloaded one movie in the same time period (the month leading up to the study). Additionally, 18% more respondents said they had downloaded more than one music track and 11% more said they had downloaded more than one movie in the time period. That brings the total music downloads to 48% and total movie downloads to 18% of web users.

Are these downloaders worried about copyright infringement? Not really. Only 40% of respondents said they saw downloading copyrighted movies as a "very serious offense". Conversely 12% of movie downloaders and 11% of music downloaders see downloading copyrighted material for free as "not serious at all".

"Most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don't think of movie downloading as a big deal," said Kaan Yigit, the study director in a prepared statement. If studios want to stop the trend of file sharing and recoup some of those losses, Yigit believes they, "…will need to offer great flexibility of use, selection and low prices…otherwise file sharing will continue to thrive."