http://www.profindpages.com/news/2005/05/21/MN935.htm
Malaysia, one of the world's top producers of pirate CD's has seen the seizure of half a million Star Wars "Revenge of the Sith" copies.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4575633.stm
"Pakistan-wide sales are expected to be around 50,000 copies within the first two weeks," one leading retailer said.
http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/star%20wars%20pirated%20discs%20seized%20in%20malaysia
Meanwhile in China, unauthorised discs of the film are being sold on market stalls across the country for only $0.85 (GBP0.44).
So that provides the world view, closer to home:
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/46923.htm
Anyone who planned to see "Star Wars" on the cheap will have to check out Luke Skywalker elsewhere after a Harlem raid yesterday netted tons of counterfeit DVDs — including more than 1,000 copies of George Lucas' space opera, which opened just two days ago.
and tomarrow, this BitTorrent story will hit many households directly, through media stories and potential lawsuits.
Now yes there are opinions similar to MeBeJedi:
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6457.cfm
One has to wonder why the focus is immediately put on to the people (the star wars fans) who are downloading and sharing this copy of the movie with each other, and not on the industry insider who is responsible for the leak in the first place or the pirate on the street selling the movie.
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It is most likely that some revenue will be lost because of it, but this time, the finger should be pointed at the media that made such a huge fuss over such a regular thing and simply alerted the general public that the leaked copy existed and even explained in some cases how easy it was to download.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/43282.html
As everyone except the mainstream media knows, "Sith" showed up on the P2P networks the same day it opened in theaters. But the P2P viewing wasn't due to the efforts of an evil file sharer with Sony's (NYSE: SNE) latest pirate camcorder stashed under his/her grubby rain-coat.
Rather, it was because of yet another Hollywood insider leak -- not that it stopped Glickman from ranting about P2P file sharers, BitTorrent and anything else that came to mind.
Of 285 movies researchers sampled on the P2P networks, 77 percent were leaked by industry insiders, says the 2003 AT&T (NYSE: T) Labs report Analysis of Security Vulnerabilities in the Movie Production and Distribution Process.
...and it would be nice if i could wrap this up in a one sentence bow, but i can't.
none