Many of the major torrent sites are now disappearing - blocked by web providers, taken to court and locked up, intimidated into closing their cyber-doors and going into cyber-hiding forevermore. It seems not unlikely that web piracy as we've known it these last few years will soon cease to be, but there is no doubt already some ingenious new method of distributing stolen content that the criminal super-boffins are either sitting on, or already implementing covertly like some kind of web-based Bond villians (Codefinger? Bodjob?).
So what are the residual effects of web piracy, other than the lighter pockets of a few Hollywood fat cats and music moguls? Well, perhaps there has been a shift in the way many of us choose to spend our sheckles, and the value we put on entertainment. We still go to the cinema - the recent success of films such as The Avengers and Avatar are testament enough to that - but now we can be more choosy. Many of us now only go to the cinema to see the films that you just HAVE to see in the cinema - the all-singing-all-dancing, bang-for-your-buck spectacle movies that cost more than most wars and last about as long. And sometimes these are great (The Dark Knight) and sometimes they are not (everything else). The fact of the matter is, there has been a shift in consumer thinking and a shift in consumer behaviour.
This, I suspect, is a major contributor to the frenzied and frantic push by studios for the 3D retro-fitting of 2D movies. Over the last few years, more-or-less every traditionally-shot big budget studio fare was hurriedly thrown back into post-production just before it's release, with layers of 3D added. So brazenly cynical the scheme was, you almost want to congratulate them ('Them') for sheer cutthroat businessry. Not only does your 2D movie (£9 in most London cinemas) now cost you £2 extra for the privilege of being in 3D (which, by the way, it's not. It's in 2D, with an effect on it), but you also have to buy those 3D glasses at £3 a piece, rocketing the average ticket price from £9 a head to £14 (9+2+3, maths fans!), and that's before you've been pocket-pinched for popcorn and pick-n-mix.
With downloads legal and illegal effectively murdering the home video market, Hollywood is now far far FAR more reliant on box office takings than it has been in decades, and will go to great lengths to keep themselves in cocaine and guitar-shaped swimming pools. It's the reason you won't see many more $90 million art flicks like the 1999 box-office flop Fight Club, and the reason Tim Burton won't dare make a film without Johnny 'WATCH ME ACT' Depp - if it's not a surefire must-see at the theatre for every shellshocked mum as her fat and probably rude children, then it's not worth the risk.
The fact is that the studio reaction to piracy hasn't just effected the way films are made, but also the type of films that are made. The push is now on studios to make high-octane thrill-rides that don't translate to soft-focus, small-screen pirate copies. That's all good, when these pyro-manic light shows are done well (The Avengers) but, more often than not, they aren't (anything Michael Bay's done in the last decade).
Can we save the multi-million dollar art movie? Can we rescue the movies from the bland bombast of Bay and Bruckheimer? How? Is it advertising - in the past a dirty word to many a film aficionado - that may in fact be the salvation of the silver screen? Through clever product placement, through ad-funding… couldn't we perhaps alleviate some of the pressure from the box office and, in doing so, create a world where the popular arts aren't all competing for the almighty dollar, Johnny Depp isn't gobbling every set, and films can once again make us think, rather than impair our ability to? I don't know the answer. But maybe…
