This comes from a recent article (Mike Ryan, Yahoo! Movies) about how piracy is affecting box office sales of Iron Man 2.
For once, the author (who is probably not a copyright law/tech law junkie; I am not exasperated with this particular author but with mainstream reporters on the subject in general) recognizes that the impact of piracy on box office sales is tiny. The only reason why it is making news is because Paramount has released the film in other countries before releasing it in the US and Canada, so people here will have an even bigger reason to watch a foreign pirated version (as, unlike other movies, this movie would not have been seen by them). The author also recognizes that with the movie Avatar, people had a reason to go into the theaters as the pirated copies were of the 2D version (as current home recording equipment isn't sophisticated enough to allow copying 3D movies without losing the 3-dimensionality of the film) while the theaters were showing the film in 3D. Even the producers of Iron Man 2 admit that they could have made more money at the box office by making the movie 3D (with respect to people not pirating 3D films), and they don't rail on end about how piracy is killing box office sales (because they probably know that it isn't).
At last, I see some sanity in mainstream observers of the movie industry.
