There will always be people who want to buy movies. They like to show off their Blockbuster-style library when friends and family come over. They’ve seen “Braveheart” two dozen times and they know all of the lines from “Scarface.” Their idea of a fun Friday involves drinking games set to movies and their most common date involves a DVD player, popcorn and some of the finest films ever made. As technology improves, so do the caliber of movies coming out, but let’s face it; not every movie is worth purchasing. In fact, some of the year’s “top movies” will leave us wishing we had those two hours of our lives back. And so the quest to bootleg free movies continues. Here are some of the top downloads of 2008.

The Dark Knight was the biggest hit at the box office in 2008 and also the most pirated movie, according to data collected by www.torrentfreak.com. The movie raked in $1 billion at theaters worldwide but was also downloaded 7.03 million times. According to TorrentFreak, “Comments on various BitTorrent sites reveal that many downloaders obtained an illegal copy after they had already watched the movie in the movie theater.” Perhaps the window of time with films is interfering with the consumers’ desire to have immediate access. Thomas Rubin, chief counsel for Intellectual Property Strategy at Microsoft, suggests that many people download new movies and music not because they want to steal it for free, but because they want access and more flexible ways to consume it.

Yet these numbers only reflect how many times films have been downloaded from sites — not how many times the file gets passed around on peer-to-peer sites. Even marginally successful movies like Transporter 3 and The Day The Earth Stood Still have been shared across networks over 8 million times already. In music news, piracy and illegal music downloads have dropped 25% from December 2007 to January 2008 as more and more people sign up to free music streaming sites like Pandora, Spotify and Last FM. However, analysts aren’t so sure if this will extend to videos or not. Ten of the most pirated TV shows (like Heroes and Lost) can also be found on film streaming sites like Hulu, VEOH and major TV network sites.

In April of 2009, The Pirate Bay, a popular source for pirated movies online, was shut down. Its administrators were forced to pay $3 million in fines and spend a year in a Swedish prison. In the meantime, the websites www.mininova.org and www.isohunt.com picked up many of The Pirate Bay’s followers and continued to be a source of on-demand films content. Perhaps in the future, film distributors will experiment with alternate distribution models that appeal to consumers’ desire to have the movies they want, when they want and how they want; but, for now, the battle rages on.

Beth Kaminski is the co-author of Curing Your Anxiety And Panic Attacks which detailed treating panic disorder as well as tips on the various medications for panic disorder available at anxietydisordercure.com.

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