Study: Nearly $2 Billion in Potential Disc Sales Lost for Top Pirated Movies

3 Apr, 2013 By: Chris Tribbey

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Movie studios lost nearly $2 billion in revenue on potential disc sales for the top 10 pirated movies of 2012, according to a new report.

Video software company Ooyala estimates there were more than 75 million illegal downloads for the 10 most-pirated movies of 2012, with Warner’s Project X leading the way with an estimated 8.72 million illegal downloads, citing data from the BitTorrent-based website TorrentFreak.

Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (8.5 million), The Dark Knight Rises (8.23 million), The Avengers (8.11 million) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (7.85 million) rounded out the top five.

The studios lost an estimated $1.48 billion in potential DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales due to illegal downloads of the top 10 most-pirated TV series of 2012 (“Game of Thrones,” “Dexter,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “How I Met Your Mother” and “Breaking Bad” being the top five).

“If this download rate continued for each show throughout a typical season, it would mean almost $1.5 billion in lost potential revenue just among the top 10 shows alone,” the report reads. “While it’s likely that some illegal download viewers wouldn’t be willing to pay to view these shows, there’s clearly considerable revenue upside to ensuring the most appropriate content protection for premium content.”

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