Who doesn’t like blindingly fast internet? Movie studios who don’t want people to watch their movies, apparently. A announced in February its plans to expand to 34 U.S. cities — could increase piracy, while completely ignoring how fast internet could be a boon for legal streaming.
The survey, conducted on behalf of Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2012, asked 2,000 people in St. Louis and Kansas City about Google Fibre and their media consumption. One slide led with the worrisome stat that “Roughly a quarter of pirates cite speed as a reason for pirating.”
With some leaps in logic, the presentation concludes that Google Fibre will increase pirating and hundreds of millions in lost revenue in the following slide.
And while that might not actually be false, it completely ignores all the potential that faster internet offers, if Hollywood was just willing to leverage the technology.
TorrentFreak notes that the same survey also found that 39 per cent of people would use paid more subscription streaming services and 34 per cent would rent and buy more movies online. Of course, the slides don’t mention these potential benefits of Google Fibre and additional revenue from paying customers.
Granted, the presentation is from 2012, and Hollywood has been forced to make halting steps toward making legitimate video streaming easier in the meantime, though not willingly. These slides are yet another clear demonstration of the studios’ myopic view of new technology. This suspicion toward Google Fibre in particular echoes Hollywood’s long suspicion toward the internet in general. Hey Hollywood, it’s not Google Fibre, it’s you. [TorrentFreak]
Images via TorrentFreak