Survey Shows Studios Concerned About Fast Internet, Piracy

A series of leaked slides obtained by TorrentFreak show that Hollywood i in full freak-out mode over fast Internet. A survey conducted by Warner Bros. and Sony Entertainment in 2012 asked participants about their consumption of "unofficial" media (read: pirated content). Centered in Kansas City and St. Louis, the survey took some liberties is ascertaining how respondents would download and/or distribute content if they had Google Fiber. The focussed survey also made some assumptions regarding potential actions of people with Fiber.

Google is set to expand Fiber through a staged rollout to various cities around the nation, with 34 territories currently set for consideration. Complimenting that is the arms race by others to beat Google to the punch, where AT&T is the most notable opponent for Google in the Gigabit Internet land-grab.

The survey assumes that studios would lose an additional $1 billion annually, bringing the total annual loss in revenue due to pirating $2.75 billion.

That estimation comes after several instances of "if" and "likely".

St. Louis was compared to Kansas City, with some true/false inquiries about fast Internet contributing to illegal content consumption. Oddly enough, St. Louis outpaced Kansas City in several key areas of the survey.

Kansas City had/was getting Google Fiber in this 2012 survey. St. Louis was never in the conversation for Fiber, yet the answers somehow lead the studios to think Fiber (and by virtue gigabit Internet) is somehow going to make things worse for them. They also assume the ratio of those that would/could pirate content with gigabit Internet.

Source: TorrentFreak