Digital downloads dent Hollywood's bottom line

[admin]

A Lehman Brothers analyst downgraded the entertainment industry Monday and slashed forecasts for its five major companies, saying digital downloads of movies and TV shows posed a huge threat to profits from DVD sales that the companies rely on.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/digital-downloads-dent-hollywoods-bottom-line/2008/07/08/1215282798357.html

This is in relations to legal digital downloads, not piracy. And DVD sales affected also means Blu-ray sales too.

[drfsupercenter]

Yeah it's hurting them because no one wants to pay for the studios' crappy excuse for a movie, whether it's in digital form or on a disc

The studios should offer free online movies but have ads on the download page so they're still making money. Disney is doing this now, but it's stream only (As far as I know - I haven't tried to download any)... and I think it's a really smart idea. Because even then the ads aren't as bad as certain torrent sites.