Since the inception of the PSP portable gaming system, it seems like individuals have been more taken with the fact that it can play PSP UMD movies, and not just games. It seems like there are many more movies that can be played on these systems than there are games and other PSP stuff. And the spin-off has been software programs that can convert movies into a format that is playable on these systems, such as PSP Movie Creator.

But by early 2006, sales of PSP UMD movies and other similar products had decreased so much that the big manufacturers were slashing their production, selling the movies at a lower price and even giving them away. What was the cause of this sudden drop in sales? The reason is quite obvious really. The situation is quite similar to downloading songs and movies free of charge rather than getting the disk. There doesn’t seem to be any point to paying cash for something that you can get at no cost.

Unfortunately for the makers of PSP UMD movies, this is a situation they likely didn’t foresee. Of course it is just like what happened to the producers of music CDs when the internet became filled with lots of free download sites. The increase in concealed and unlawful websites for PSP UMD movie pirating is the primary cause of the industry slowdown.

Some manufacturers have produced promotional items such as older videos that were previously available only in obsolete formats such as beta, and offered them at a reduced price. They even tried to sell the movies for a reasonable outlay on their own websites. However there are still many people who will find a way to make the movies freely available.

There is no shortage of sites on the internet where a movie can be converted to PSP format and downloaded. And in conjunction with this easy accessibility to free movie downloads, there are also conversion programs you can buy that make it easier than ever to convert movies you already own into UMD format. Even though this is theoretically illegal, it is still a popular practice. And once they’ve converted the movie, they upload it to share with others. With these kinds of alternatives, what’s the point of paying for them when they can be found free of charge?

It’s not easy to come up with a solution to this situation, but any steps to change things would need to involve some sort of law enforcement effort to search out and shut down these sites. No doubt the movie manufacturers would like to be involved in something like this. In addition, it’s important that the laws against piracy are implemented more forcefully with wider coverage. But it is much less difficult to talk about this than to do anything about it. If the situation worries you, you can do your part by buying your PSP UMD movies instead of “borrowing” them.

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