Monday, August 30, 2010

If You Download Resident Evil Afterlife Movie Online Free, Are Video Stores Doomed?

By Eric Newman

When a British entrepreneur unveiled the first legal service to Download Resident Evil Afterlife Movie Online for Free a few years ago, video store owners around the world began worrying about their future. Why, indeed, would a customer drive to a store when they can buy the movie they seek from their computer keyboard?

Downloading services today are marketing to the very kind of person who used to drive to Blockbuster or Movie Gallery twice a week. After all, DVD and VHS renting is a massive market. Here's a prediction: major film studios will eventually have their own online downloading services. Dumping movies into your home computers is going to be massive.

Legal movie downloading companies say they are aiming for the very customer who frequents the corner video store. Indeed, VHS and DVD rental is a massive market worldwide. Movie marketers today schedule not only the first-run release of each new movie these days, but also when it will be released in second-run theaters, then how and when it will hit foreign cinemas, then when the film will become available on DVD and when it will go to HBO, Starz, Showtime and other cable outlets. Now stir in one more possibility -- home download release. What once was illegal has become a viable marketplace.

Just a few months ago, somebody sitting at their home computer uploaded a high-quality copy of a newly released film onto a certain illegal person-to-person file-sharing network. Within weeks, that one file had been downloaded by 30,408 people on six continents. Dozens of other illegal copies of the movie found their way onto the hard drives of many thousands more.

Does online piracy endanger Hollywood? Of course money is being lost. But Hollywood has learned to study the pirates. Their successes actually signal untapped marketing opportunities. Not so very long ago, Hollywood resisted the development of VHS and DVD marketing. The studios feared that home movies would negatively impact box-office receipts. However, the home viewing market has expanded markets for moviemakers. Today, many films never make it to a theater. They go directly to DVD. Have you ever heard of YouTube? With its new popularity, suddenly anybody can be a filmmaker -- sharing their latest video creation or propaganda attempt or religious inspiration or hilarious home video with millions of people worldwide in a matter of hours.

So, yes, Hollywood will be smart to continue adapting today's ever-changing technologies. Several studios have worked out a deal with a file-sharing site that rents movies, which can be downloaded, but which self-destruct after viewing! Where will that go? Only time will tell.

Pirate successes are worth careful study. They do point to untapped opportunity. Not so many years ago, Hollywood actually fought the idea of marketing videotaped movies. The big studios feared that people would stay at home rather than go to their local cinema. They were wrong, however. Home viewing has expanded Hollywood's reach. Today many new releases are never screened at a theater, but instead go directly to home video.

Studios will be smart to continue embracing technologies that empower the public to Download Resident Evil Afterlife Movie for Free sitting in their easy chair, barefoot and in their pyjamas - without ever leaving home. - 40727

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