Variety has an in-depth look at last year's amazing box-office numbers from the MPAA. The thing that struck me is that the box numbers went way, way up and that those gains were driven by box-office returns in Brazil, China and India (where there is more "piracy" than ever), and my a return to the cinema in North America (where there is more "piracy" than ever). Even more: people with great home theaters are also more likely to go the cinema (duh — if you're a 60" screen videophile, you're almost certainly a theatrical release junkie) and that young men (the world's most prolific downloaders) are also the most likely to go to the movies.
Seems to me that downloading and box-office slumps are unrelated phenomena. In other words, the recent bad box-office years have been driven by crummy movies, not piracy.
(Thanks, Butch!)
Update:
Stephen sez, "Back in November 2006 when the preliminary numbers came out, I wrote about the sales increase and some of the MPAAs anti-piracy propaganda, in which they determine that they lost $18.2 billion due to piracy in 2005.
Fully 200% of their box office total *on a growth year*.
How did they arrive at this number? They say only this:
'Piracy loss calculations are based on the number of legitimate movies – movie tickets and legitimate DVDs – consumers would have purchased if pirated versions were not available.'
Very scientific!"
