Movies Get Pirated

Michael Moore’s new movie “Sicko” got posted on the Internet before it was released. Why is this news? Because Michael Moore and the Weinstein Company are making it news. I’m sure there was a press release put out by the Weinstein Company, and Moore’s going around claiming it was an inside job. Maybe it was. Or maybe it was made from a DVD screener. I don’t know the specifics of the distribution plans, but I find it hard to believe that there were no DVD screeners available for the film, considering that it’s already played at Cannes and it’s coming out in theaters so soon. Then today there were more articles wondering if the film’s box office would be hurt by all this crazy piracy. The figure mentioned in the articles is 4000 downloads on Piratebay. 4000! And “as many as 600” saw it on YouTube! Do reporters even stop to think about what they’re writing? That many people watching a movie online before it’s released is a story only because the numbers are so small. Hell, according to mininova, 2,000 people are downloading Fay Grim right now. Fay Grim was pirated 2 weeks before it opened and that’s a movie much lower on the radar than Sicko. Trust me, Sicko will do just fine even with all these dirty pirates around.