Does piracy really hurt the movie industry?
We’re reminded every weekend how well the box office is doing. However, box office is just one aspect of our business. For years, home video has been a bigger piece. Our studios have relied heavily on the success of their films in the distribution chain after a film is released in the theater. We know that piracy is cutting into those profits, and when those profits are reduced, the studios have fewer dollars to invest in movies, and when there is less money to invest they make fewer movies and the diversity and variety of films we love become more limited. More importantly, if we’re making fewer movies, then fewer people will be able to make their living working on movies. We’ve also seen the impact of piracy on video stores — we’ve seen countless examples of video stores struggling to stay afloat because people are peddling DVDs of movies that are still in theatrical release right in front of these legitimate operations and stealing their business. It simply becomes a struggle to com
