Are Video Stores Doomed Now You Can Get Movies Online?

By Will Greenwood

When a London company announced several years ago that it was offering the first legal service to Watch Ramona And Beezus Movie Online Free, video store owners around the world began worrying about their future.

Why, after all, would customers leave the comfort of their home to wander through a store to study video covers when anybody can do the same thing at their home keyboard? Why go out into the rain or snow or summer's heat when everything's available -- legally -- at the click of a mouse?

And here's another prediction: the illegal download sites will boom as well. Why not download for free? One major reason is that it's illegal. Law enforcement made very public examples of a number of illegal music downloaders several years ago. Do you really want to see your name in the headlines? Terrible quality is another reason. Viruses are also common with free online movie downloads. The jerks who create viruses have to dream up clever ways to spread them.

Yes, when downloading movies first began, doing so was illegal. The U.S. Movie industry lost an estimated $2.3 billion annually in revenue to internet pirates just a few years ago. Hollywood's total annual income that year was estimated to be just under $45 billion. So, it should be obvious why Hollywood is harnessing its own download possibilities.

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.

Some of the world's biggest DVD-counterfeiters are in China, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. One DVD mill near Manila was cranking out 14 million DVDs annually. Indeed, bootlegged DVDs traceable to China have been identified in at least 25 countries. So it will be with downloadable movies. Already a Sweden-based site functions much like Google, listing movies that are illegally available for free download. In a recent visit to that site, investigators found more than 5 million users online, trading illegally copied films.

Studios will be smart to continue embracing technologies that empower the public to Watch Ramona And Beezus Movie for Free sitting in their easy chair, barefoot and in their pajamas -- without ever leaving home.

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