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Slow Growth for Movie Downloads

Jonathan Handel

Sep 6, 2007

A study by Screen Digest Magazine predicts that the aggregate U.S. and European movie download biz will be $1.3 billion by 2011, reports Variety -- only 3% of the total home vid market.

Why so low? Lack of a "single download model," the trade paper reports. Presumably this refers to the diversity of formats and websites. In other words, the only one-stop shopping for movies will probably continue to be pirate services such as BitTorrent servers. :(

Terminology refresher:

Electronic Sell Through (EST) = download-to-own = customer downloads the movie and gets to play it forever on the proprietary player corresponding to the format of the file - analogous to home-video sell-through (sale).

Broadband video-on-demand = download or streaming that is playable for a limited time only - analogous to home-video rental.