Hollywood is dragging its feet when it comes to dealing with
online piracy.  Manoush Zomorodi reports.

Hulu.com is a new ad supported website from NBC Universal and NewsCorp. 

The 2 media giants hope that by streaming their movies and TV shows to
viewers, they can stunt the growth of online piracy. 

But critics say content is limited on Hulu...pirate sites still offer a lot
more entertainment for nothing.

Sites like ZML.com or movie6.com are a growing problem for Hollywood as
broadband becomes more available around the world.  Many consumers don't care
if the picture isn't perfect- they just want convenient and free movies.  

Stephen Garrett writes about film for Time Out magazine.

Stephen Garrett, Writer,  Time Out, saying:
"Young people who you think would be more keen on better image
quality, better sound quality, are the one's who are pioneering the whole free
thing because younger people have less income.  Older people, who have more
income, just want the convenience of watching it at home or whenever they
want.  So you've got a big tsunami that's about to hit or is already hitting. 
"

Hollywood was already panicking about DVD sales- they fell for the first
time ever last year.  
Blu-Ray, the new standard high definition format, is unlikely to give the
DVD market the big boost it needs.

And even though online piracy costs movie studios several billion dollars a
year, Hollywood has been slow to change with the digital times, says Georg
Szalai, of The Hollywood Reporter.

Georg Szalai, Writer, Hollywood Reporter saying,

"It's one of those things, where certain business models are
ingrained and it's very hard to move a ship that has been moving along a
certain path for a long time. I think to some degree studios are worried about
changing their business models b/c they're not quite sure how the new business
models will evolve and there's a lot of fear of giving up revenue and profit. 
"

Hollywood has been experimenting with different price points and
distribution methods- Hulu.com's predecessors, for example, include Amazon's
Unbox and Apple's iTunes, which have deals with the major studios but also
have restrictions and limited catalogs.

Which means until legal Internet distribution is standardized, easy, and
cheap, the pirates will continue to thrive.

Manoush Zomorodi, Reuters, New York