Megaupload Shutdown Boosted Digital Movie Revenues

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Imagine that, cutting off a huge source of pirated movies actually boosted digital movie revenue a little bit. Either that, or it was a coincidence. ;)

A new paper suggests that revenues from digital movie sales and rentals were positively impacted after the shutdown of Megaupload. Researchers from Wellesley College and Carnegie Mellon University compared the income from 12 countries with varying Megaupload usage. They conclude that the shutdown caused a 6-10% increase in digital movie revenues for two major Hollywood studios.
 
Makes sense since there are no other ways of getting content other than Megaupload.
 
Oh you mean when Batman Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers were released, nah that's just a coincidence...Right?
 
Ya just two major Hollywood studios, because all the others don't matter. haha

I would really like to see one of these studies show some hard evidence and not just some weak collation. Maybe try to cover all bases not just push there bias with weak papers that couldn't convince a first grade panel that their conclusion is the only right one.
 
Idiots. Mega upload was nothing. The piracy scene is like the ultimate carnival mole game. Before you've even finished smacking one mole down, 500 others have already popped up.
 
Honestly, I wouldn't trust or believe anything the MPAA or RIAA or their coallition media forces have to say. Their track record and penchant for lying speaks for itself.
 
Makes sense since there are no other ways of getting content other than Megaupload.

Depends how much you know.

The table above shows that Megaupload “penetration” was relatively high in Spain and France, where 17% and 11% of Internet subscribers used the site. With less than 2% it was least popular in the United States.

The researchers used these differences for their statistical model and found that movie revenues were affected positively in countries with a high Megaupload penetration.

“For each additional 1% pre-shutdown Megaupload penetration, the post-shutdown sales unit change was 2.5% to 3.8% higher, suggesting that these increases are a causal effect of the shutdown,” they write.
The large effect of Megaupload’s shutdown is quite surprising considering the fact that there are still hundreds of other sites offering the same content. According to researcher Michael Smith, Professor of Information Technology and Marketing, for some people “going legal” is the easiest option.

“Not everyone is as sophisticated [to find alternatives] and our results suggest that at least some people decided they were willing to pay a little bit more not to have to go through the “trouble” of finding the content on these other sites,” he told us.

Adding to this, professor Danaher says that the Megaupload shutdown was not an isolated event and also affected the policies and availability of pirated content through other cyberlockers.
It's really not that hard to believe, among casual downloaders/viewers.
 
Makes sense since there are no other ways of getting content other than Megaupload.

Like there's no other place to download files.....

More than likely it's because they actually released some movies people wanted to watch.
 
^I think he was being facetious

I know he was, but the authors didn't ignore the fact that there's other places to get files. They're saying in the places where MegaUpload was so popular that it basically hit mainstream (ie. Southern Europe), it reached a level of consumer who doesn't actually know how to search for pirated content on their own. They only knew about MegaUpload and nothing else, so to them it could seem as if the only options are MU or buying a cheap digital rental.
 
lol was megaupload even a significant source of piracy? The Pirate Bay and other torrent trackers are probably much higher.
 
I know he was, but the authors didn't ignore the fact that there's other places to get files. They're saying in the places where MegaUpload was so popular that it basically hit mainstream (ie. Southern Europe), it reached a level of consumer who doesn't actually know how to search for pirated content on their own. They only knew about MegaUpload and nothing else, so to them it could seem as if the only options are MU or buying a cheap digital rental.

I could be wrong but MegaUpload didn't have a search function did it? If it didn't wouldn't the user have to use a site/forum that posted links to pirated files on MegaUpload and wouldn't that site/forum just use an alternative host once MegaUpload was shutdown?
 
“Not everyone is as sophisticated [to find alternatives] and our results suggest that at least some people decided they were willing to pay a little bit more not to have to go through the “trouble” of finding the content on these other sites,”

People didn't just go to MU and find stuff, they had to search for the MU content links in the first place. And most places that were posting them just switched to different upload sites. If they could find the stuff in the first place, finding an alternative is a simple Google search away. So I doubt anyone starting paying money because using Google was too much "trouble".

It's sad that instead of just saying that Hollywood finally put out some movies worth paying for and should keep it up (not hard to guess what 2 studios the study was focused on), we end up with these kind of studies that encourage government waste of time and money.
 
I could be wrong but MegaUpload didn't have a search function did it? If it didn't wouldn't the user have to use a site/forum that posted links to pirated files on MegaUpload and wouldn't that site/forum just use an alternative host once MegaUpload was shutdown?
It did, but it purposefully didn't work very well. MegaUpload and RapidShare were big enough, however, that they had separate search sites dedicated to them, plus most of the link aggregates went to MegaVideo anyways.

What you'd really have to look at is traffic numbers, and how much of Mega's traffic spread to other sites when they got taken down. If NovaMov and those others didn't get a bump, that'd be a good indication.
 
This is just ludicrous. Megaupload files were much harder to find, terrible DL speeds, and just atrocious quality. Don't believe that statistic for a second, the above post mentioning the batman movie and another release sound pretty reasonable hypothesis.

Occam's Razor

I severely hope in the next landmark case statistic's like this are used at trial.
 
Eh... Some crucial info is missing, like funded by and they refer to digital but some could be from physical sales moving to digital etc. Also 2 studios seems to be a bit of a small sample size if you ask me.
 
This is just ludicrous. Megaupload files were much harder to find, terrible DL speeds, and just atrocious quality.

If these were major issues for people, then it would't have been by far the #1 locker/video sharer. The people they're talking about 1. don't care about HD video 2. live in Spain/France/Italy/etc. so their internet already had very limited speeds to begin with.
 
I find it extremely hard to believe Megaupload was any significant source of movie piracy. I know a lot of piracy goes on with movies but very few people used Megaupload for it. Most movies are gotten via torrents and/or usenet.
 
Actually, didn't Megavideo have a 75 minute cap? If I recall correctly, it did, so you're right it wouldn't be good at all for movies. I think it was better for TV.
 
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