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People like the thrill of watching the newest movies and the newest only, nobody cares for the old stuff (disclaimer: in percentages – long trail and trekkies exclusion).
People go through great lengths to get just that. Typing “watch movies online ” in Google brings up peekvid on #1, where many newest movies are shown (illegally). Via all the “sharing tools” (bittorrent , newsgroups , DC++ , edonkey , and so on, and so on ) the newest movies are the most popular downloaded items.
So…why is that? why do good people all over the world, normal housefathers and otherwise normal people get mindwashed to suddenly turn into ruthless thieves? Why don’t they just watch the “old” movies, as seen on TV? Or just go to the cinema for the new movies?
My hypothesis is that it has become part of our culture to regard “seeing the latest movies” as a status symbol. And the more “latest movies” you saw or posses, the higher your status gets. That is because a person/enduser then holds “knowledge” that others don’t. “Hey…have you seen… that was really cool”. “That looks like a good movie I see in this magazine”, “Ow… I already saw it”, “really?”. It make a person/enduser feel good to see a new movie.
Battling piracy of movies makes this only worse. It is perceived as making it only more exclusive to actually see these movies. It’s like a big overall marketing approach since stopping the flow of these movies on the “Internet” is virtually impossible. Each lawsuit only boosts hundreds of new sites or “innovative” applications in the air circling the new ground.
So what could help? IMHO it is to accept the fact that people like to see new movies at all costs. Somehow our current society works like that. The approach should therefore be to make it possible for endusers to see these new movies at all costs and in an easier way than they currently get them. Currently it is not possible to see new movies anywhere on the Internet, there are loads of places where one can see Older movies but not the real New ones. Although Guba and friends are coming close.
What I vision is numerous Guba+Flixter +ApplePreviews+ListallMovies +IMDB mashups that “prepare users for day X” when movie Y is going live. Massive marketing and signup’s for viewing the movie online for e.g. $1,- while it stays there to view for $1,- forever more, that, together with the multiple tv-pc integration devices will probably set things straight again.
Who would search for a movie, download a movie for a day, locate storage, burn it when he would simply be able to click it on his tv screen? That alone will lead to websites which will flourish and in a short time will grow a gigantic product offering.
Therefore I predict: In five years time, almost any enduser will have a menu on his tv screen where he can select any movie ever made and view it straight away (and probably will choose only the latest releases INCLUDING commercials 
).
