TorrentFreak has published its latest online movie piracy rankings, which show the most popular films shared over the BitTorrent protocol.
Popularity is measured by the number of times a movie was downloaded in the past week, as per TorrentFreak’s own estimates.
Two new entrants this week are Get Hard and Jurassic World, which knocked off Pitch Perfect 2 and a camera-recorded copy of Avengers: Age of Ultron.
TorrentFreak’s ranking is compared to the iTunes charts for the US and South Africa, as well as the most popular movies on DStv BoxOffice, in the table below.
DStv doesn’t provide a ranking for the most popular movies on its BoxOffice rental service, and as such its titles are listed in no particular order.
| Rank | TorrentFreak | iTunes US | iTunes ZA | DStv BoxOffice* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Get Hard | Kingsman: The Secret Service | Fifty Shades of Grey | Fifty Shades of Grey |
| 2 | Run All Night | The DUFF | American Sniper | American Sniper |
| 3 | Kingsman: The Secret Service | Focus (2015) | The Wedding Ringer | Kingsman: The Secret Service |
| 4 | Jurassic World | Get Hard | The Interview | Ballade vir ‘n Enkeling |
| 5 | Chappie | McFarland, USA | The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water | The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water |
| 6 | San Andreas Quake | Spaceballs | Jupiter Ascending | Jupiter Ascending |
| 7 | Furious 7 | American Sniper | Annie | Annie |
| 8 | Home | Wild Card | Still Alice | Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts |
| 9 | Blackhat | Jupiter Ascending | The Lion King | Inglorious Basterds |
| 10 | Unfinished Business | Jurassic Park | Taken 3 | Seventh Son |
| DStv BoxOffice Most Popular movies list is not ranked. Order here is arbitrary. | ||||
Legal options
Before 2012, South Africans had no real options for buying or renting digital movies.
Since then, Apple has launched its iTunes Movies in South Africa, while MultiChoice launched DStv BoxOffice.
Both iTunes and BoxOffice offer transactional video on demand (TVOD) services, which lets users rent movies for a fee and then watch them within a certain period. iTunes Movies also lets you buy movies.
In 2014, Netflix-like subscription video on demand (SVOD) services were launched in SA.
Vidi from Times Media Group launched first with a hybrid SVOD and TVOD service, shortly followed by the Altech Node and MTN’s FrontRow.
All of these new VOD services have steadily added more content to their platforms.
More on copyright infringement in South Africa
Piracy site EZTV shuts down after crazy takeover scheme
Is online piracy really stealing?
Top torrent and piracy websites in the world
South African movie, music piracy labs busted – here they are
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