Technology & Innovation — February 3, 2011

Movie Industry To Blame for Piracy

Nobody should be surprised to see unauthorized movie downloads booming when the authorized kind remain so difficult to find. Movie studios should seek to satisfy demand.

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Why would movies be such a popular illegitimate download? It doesn’t take much time comparing the ease of finding a new song on iTunes with your odds of locating a new movie on Amazon or Netflix to realize that the commercial online availability of movies lags woefully behind that of music. Between the wait for a new film to appear online—and the self-defeating “release window” system that requires it to be taken offline on an arbitrary schedule—getting an honest movie rental or purchase over the Internet remains frustrating.

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