Drama film Contagion has been the witnessed of the huge spike on download sites amid the Coronavirus pandemic. The movie was released in 2011, the film – was directed by Stephen Soderbergh and written by Scott Z Burns – tells the story of a fictional illness that kills 26 million people worldwide. Warner Bros, who distributed the film, has now announced that the film is currently the most in-demand film in its list behind the franchise of Harry Potter. For comparison, the film was ranked as its 270th most popular film in December 2019 before coronavirus pandemic spread around the world.
The thing is that Contagion isn’t streaming anywhere — especially in the United States — leading to an increase in rentals on iTunes and torrent downloads. The verge partnered with Torrent Freak to measure the emergence of people downloading Contagion between January 1st and March 4th. The data is evaluated by looking at IP addresses that share the movie, according to TorrentFreak’s site editor Ernesto. Analysts look at torrent tracker data, “which is public and broadcasts downloading IP addresses,” he told The Verge. The data isn’t complete or exact, but torrent statistics never are. Think of them as close estimates.
Initially, the movie was most popular in South Korea, one of the most harshly hit countries, but its popularity has since been overtaken by the US, according to Ernesto. “These download figures only apply to torrents, which are a small fraction of the piracy landscape,” Ernesto told The Verge. “Streaming piracy is much more popular (but not measurable) so the total piracy numbers are much higher.” At the time of writing, thousands have caught the disease with health secretary Matt Hancock saying the elderly could be quarantined for a period of up to four months in the coming weeks as a prudent measure to protect lives.
People want to watch Contagion, and they also want to use the streaming services they subscribe to, but without those options, they’re required to look into rental options and downloading. Netflix executives have publicly said they plan to invest more in original content instead of acquiring more licensed movies, but one has to imagine that they’re kicking themselves for not bidding on this now. Stay be tuned here to get other latest updates from India and around the world.
