Did Illegal File Sharing Save Black Cinema?

Black cinema in North America as recent as two years ago was effectively dead. So said many industry experts and lamented by many civic groups like the Naacp. Then came social media and yes to an even greater,  yet underrated extent – piracy.

The sharing technology known as bittorrent (aka, torrent) is the real hero even more important than facebook or twitter. Torrent sharing enables file downloading at speeds only dreamt 5 years ago.

Now a high definition film can be, illegally or otherwise, downloaded in as little as 20 minutes or less. At the advent of bittorrent black films were scarce or non-existent on file sharing sites like thepiratebay or isohunt.com.

Now a search of any black led film on these sites yields thousands of hits. People who may not have paid the ten dollars or more to see a Tyler Perry film will download one of his film then later perhaps feel more inclined to see the next  film with a black cast.

Television too has been refreshed with black talent too. Now there are more than 3 major shows on US networks with black leading ladies. Viola Davis’, How to get away with murder, Sleepy Hollow on Fox networks and Kerry Washington’s, Scandal.

And these are only a few examples, there are more examples of shows with significant roles for black actors, take the Batman series with Jada Pinkett Smith as an example.

Type the name of the aforementioned shows in any of the major torrent search engines and millions of hits are returned. Yes illegal file sharing is the real reason black cinema is back.