Just because you and your freinds are of low morals and choose to not buy things doesn't mean much. For example me and my freinds who are gamers have all pirated and most still do, yet they all buy tonnes of games, movies, music etc. Circumstantial evidence is basically meaningless, even proper big studies can be completely wrong even if they are not designed to decive.

And if what you describe was true then rampent movie piracy would be killing the movie industry , especially with their claimed billions in losses due to piracy yet

Of course that is mainly thanks to rapidly increasing ticket prices

But I am sure they are only increasing ticket prices to make up for the lower turnout numbers are due to piracy right?

(OMG Piracy is killing clothing sales and boosting media and sporting equipment! Wait that makes no sense does it?)

Of course this is all meaningless as the are hundreds of factors at work so no study, trend of graph will ever be able to prove any impact of any factor because nothing is in isolation, not to mention the fact that data is all up for interpretation. So in other words this argument is pointless

for another example

most would say that it shows piracy killing Recorded music (CDs), some would say that it shows that the availability of didital distrabution directly correlates to the drop in CD sales but doesn't provide as much revenue as prices are lower and you can easilly buy any single song without buying an album even songs not traditionally released a singles, yet others would say piracy (kicking off in the early 2000s) lead to a boost in live revenue. I would say it's irralivent as the industry as a whole is doing better than ever so no matter what factors are at work they are clearly not killing the industry.

There you have it. You see how people spend much less on music and video for each year? It's because of the internet and easy to download for free.

Or that increasing price pressures of rising fuel and food prices has left less disposable income for entertainment, plus the rise of alternative sources of intertainment (Videogames, youtube) and the downward pressure on the price of media (streaming, alucart digital, mail order rental, low markup online retailers) plus a cultral shift away from owning physical media. 

Who is to say? 

To just blame the first thing that pops up is stupid, I mean the price of a new release DVD was 15 pounds in 2005 and 10 today that is a 33% reduction in price and what do you know the amount spent on video content is down just 26% from 2005 to 2010.

True. Youtube and other streaming methods have most likely very much to do with it too.

Most definitely.

I've watched plenty of movies on YouTube that I simply wouldn't be able to buy through Amazon or even worse, locally through retail outlets due to being too obscure or out of print.

Anything in wide circulation though, no, but I don't doubt that there is a significant number of YouTube users who do.

ive been pirating as long as you and my experience is exacly the opposite.

The money i saved from buying shitgames went to new good ones so in the end i bought more music,movies and games.

This happens with all my friends here in sweden, greece, italy denmark and switzerland abnd holland.

out of 10 pirates only 1 downloads and doesnt care to buy.

You choose to believe the rapports from the industry that isnt interested in the effects of downloading and only interested in the losses of DL while ignoring several buisness schools/univercities that actually tried to see the actual effect good or bad!!

THE TRUTH IS DOWNLOADING IS THE BEST!!! CONSUMER TOOL THE INDUSTRY CAN NO MORE SELL YOU SHIT AND THEY DONT WANT YOU TO HAVE THAT SCREENING ABILITY!!!

all i know is that cinemas in germany are dying :(

many more people just downlaod the movie nowadays and watch it on the big flat tv. the first years of illegal downlaods the movies had a bad quality and no one had a great tv but nowadays the movies have good quality and the tv's are so huge that many don't care anymore to go to the cinema here.

i like cinema so that makes me sad :(

lol you are like 20, you can't have pirated as long as I have.

It is a myth. Those reports from universities from Amsterdam etc are bad, plus their main argument is that young people benefit from downloading by learning new stuff and later they contribute to society in other ways. Their argument is that downloading is good for society as a whole, not for the industry that gets its stuff illegally downloaded.

The death of cinima is a different problem all together, mainly due to rapidly rising ticket costs plus the rise of massive TVs and home theater. Camed movies (what you get for movies still in theaters) are still shit quality so it's not that, that is killing cinimas. It's just a luctury most people can afford more than a few times a year and the people that can afford it prefer the convenance of being able to watch the movies at home while also having the advantage of controling the enviroment (no people with cell phones or talking during the movie etc) that means that people mostly just go to see the 2-3 big blockbuster event films (Avatar etc) and wait for the rest. 

i don't know but few years ago when i said to my friends "let's go to the cinema" they said "yeah" and now, ticket prices aren't much higher here in my cinema since then and beverages/popcorn is exactly the same price, they say "loool let's get it from the internet for free and let's watch it here on my tv"

so my friends don't go to cinema anymore because they can illegally download the movie and watch it on a great tv and all very fast.

few years ago interent wasn't so fast here and the tv's weren't so big so they said "yeah let's see the movie on the big cinema screen" (not so cool to sit with 6 guys in front of an old small tv). now the illegal movie from the interent is great as well on the own screen. so big tv's helped to kill cinema as well because it's better to watch an illegal movie on that flat-tv than on a 20'' screen lol^^

ok this helps to sell more blu-rays because it's better as well to watch them on a big screen a nd people like me buy more movies because of that but still, the cinemas die because a lot of things and i think illegal downlaods are one part of that (i don't believe my friends are an exception in germany)

so, mabye it's not a big loss for the movie makers but it's bad for the cinema culture.