NZ film and video market robust despite alleged high-levels of piracy

For the most part, it takes the trend of the past few years and gently extrapolates them into the future.

And while Chorus CEO Mark Ratcliffe is a smart guy with great company track record, I see him as an interested party rather than a neutral commentator. Same goes for Sky TV boss John Fellet and other exports quoted in the report.

But anyway, for what it’s worth one section caught my eye: the film and video market.

Recent history doesn’t seem to reflect much of an impact from piracy.

And if PwC’s forward figures are correct, it’s going to remain healthy. I don't pirate music or movies. It doesn't sit well with me, even when content is not made available to the NZ market. Instead I choose to buy online content – albeit direct from a commercial North American provider (iTunes US), rather than going through a threadbare official NZ source.

But even when people are out-and-out pirates, the "cost" is often distorted. I know many who download content peer-to-peer, yet also pay full whack to Sky TV each month, and buy commercial content. It's not like if they didn't a dozen movies on the sly they would have spent an extra $100 to rent them.

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It's great to see more and more commercial download options available. Given the opportunity, most people will do the right thing.

Similarly, the figures for online music through until this year make interesting reading. This year, it seems with digital music closing in on physical sales, the total market will have a slight uptick:

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I don’t hold much truck with the report’s boosterish comments about copper, or predictions of slow fibre uptake.

This is the last Olympics that will be dominated by traditional broadcasting.

Four years from now, everybody will want to watch the Olympics via broadband (which could be feeding a regular TV). There is not a prayer of doing that over copper (which can be fast at quiet times, but not when it gets contended at peak times). And the UFB will reach a tipping point much sooner than that.

I don’t think we’re looking at slow, incremental changes to broadband and mobile data by 2016. Things will be turned on their head.

PwC does not want publications to put its survey on their websites, but you can download a copy from PwC's site if you're willing to fill out a registration form here.