Over on CNET this morning, there’s an article that explores the question of whether internet movie piracy helps or hurts box office receipts. This isn’t new, but I guess Michael Moore’s relative lack of upset over piracy of his health care documentary, Sicko, prior to its release, has given the question some new life. So far it doesn’t appear that piracy has hurt Sicko’s sales at all. This isn’t the whole story, but I’m sure that a filmmaker like Moore is more interested in getting his message out to as many viewers as possible, rather than just the bottom line.
The other truth is that we’ll never see an article in a mainstream publication that comes right out and says that piracy is a good thing. Fact is though, internet piracy is not going to go away, so anyone selling anything that can be digitized needs to figure out how to make money in such an environment. As far as movies go, I think the only films that will be truly hurt by it are bad ones. Once the word goes out that a film sucks, it’s over at the box office. Even computer geeks appreciate the in theater experience over being huddled around a computer monitor. And even large flat screen televisions are not likely to kill off the movie cinema any more than VHS movie rentals did.
Now for the obligatory, don’t pirate stuff!
