Winning an Oscar is probably the best thing that can happen to a movie. DVD sales sky-rocket, and even more importantly, the number of people downloading the movie through BitTorrent increases dramatically.
Mininova’s search cloud is a nice illustration. Below is a screenshot of the search cloud on Mininova 12 hours after the Oscar winners were announced, and for comparison, here is another one taken two days ago.
Most prominent in the search cloud is yesterday’s winner “No Country for Old Men”, that received four Oscars, including the one for the best movie.
There is more though. Almost all awarded movies are in the list of most popular searches – There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, La Vie en Rose, Juno, The Counterfeiters, Once, Sweeney Todd, Taxi to the Dark Side, Elizabeth, Ratatouille and Golden Compass. There is only one remarkable absentee from the list, and that is The Bourne Ultimatum.
People are not only trying to find the movies on BitTorrent, it seems that a lot of people are downloading the award ceremony as well, because search terms like Academy Awards and Oscars are also among the most popular search terms.
Last year we reported on the OscarTorrents site, a site where BitTorrent users could choose their own winners. Unfortunately, the site was not available this year as the creators have no time, but they’re promising to be “back next year”. In the meantime (and as usual), the full range of movies will be available at dozens of other torrent sites, right around the world.
