a leak of the entire film could be a disaster. Lions Gate's Expendables 3 bombed in theaters when it was released
  in July after a high-definition version of the movie was posted on sites that traffic in pirated films

Expendables 3 was also awful -- X-Men Wolverine was leaked very early on, and went on to do extremely well. How a leak affects ticket sales is pure speculation, I wish 'journalists' would stop talking about the harm piracy does without any substantiation.

> How a leak affects ticket sales is pure speculation

There's one way that doesn't need to be speculated about, because i see it happening often with friends:

People often use piracy as a "demo", and decide after sampling the product whether it's worth a purchase. So a common situation is to get an early cam rip of a movie, or an online-disabled version of a game, and then decide whether to go see it in the theater, or buy the full version.

Sometimes that kind of "demo" is not available though, so they'll just take the plunge and pay for it, finding out whether it's good or bad after the purchase, with no recourse available.

So, a leak is definitely bad for studios, because it'll deprive them of sales to the impatient. On the other hand it's good for consumers who would otherwise have wasted money.

> On the other hand it's good for consumers who would otherwise have wasted money.

Which is a really good thing. Studios should have some monetary incentive to make things that people actually want. I actually had a headache after Expendables 3.

> Studios should have some monetary incentive to make things that people actually want. I actually had a headache after Expendables 3.

You say that like it's simple to do. The first two Expendables movies apparently were good enough that the economics warranted a 3rd. Do you think the people at the studio were thinking "let's make this one The Unwatchables, instead?" Sometimes problems are obvious ahead of time, but more often only seem so with the benefit of hindsight.

No, they got greedy and decided it had to be PG-13 to try to sell more tickets. After watering down the content, it didn't do well as the rated R ones before it. Not that big a surprise when you're not blinded by dollar signs.

So they literally stamped a PG13 warning label on it, and people who went for R rated content were surprised and disappointed?

You say greedy, maybe they say attempting to expand the appeal of the franchise to a wider audience. It's economically advantageous for them, sure, but maybe they thought consumers would actually like it.

There might be an incentive for studios to crash and burn some titles with early leaks if they suspect the title will not generate enough money on box-office. Poor sales are easy to scoff of when title has "leaked". Not saying this is always the case, but after seeing The Expendables 3 I wouldn't be surprised. Hollywood is known for creative accounting after all.

This could be The Producers 2.

> How a leak affects ticket sales is pure speculation

I think one can say with good amount of confidence that a leak of a bad movie would likely tank ticket sales. Leak of a good movie has more unsure consequences.

That's what was claimed killed Ang Lee's Hulk movie, and I tend to believe it. It was not a good movie, and in a just world should have failed - but the public had no idea that it was going to be bad until the leak, and would have piled into theaters on opening weekend.

http://whatculture.com/film/5-movie-flops-blamed-piracy.php/...

Does it, though? How many people actually download and watch the leaked movie, and then go tell all their friends how bad it was? Would have to be a pretty big number to make a significant difference in ticket sales, right?

It is to google's credit that they waited until they were compelled to do so by law.

I know it's a totally different situation but Microsoft did inspect the email account of a blogger who was leaking their code, and I don't really blame them.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26677607

> Expandables 3 bombed in theatres after a high-definition version was posted on sites that traffic in pirated films.

The movie quality is never to blame, of course. When Gigli flopped, it was because the horrible audience texted to warn their friends after seeing the first showing[0]

If the courts were courts of facts, inference and justice, I would have expected the court to demand statistically significant proof that leaks cause a disaster. That would require showing that more leaked movie did bad than non-leaked movies did well. But the courts seem to rarely care about statistical plausibility in these issues.

[0] http://news-beta.slashdot.org/story/03/08/19/1918243/movie-i...

Why? They already know who did it.

https://twitter.com/Marvel/status/525071656306626560

Another example of why Google's amassing of personal information is dangerous for society.

One should try towards having laws that aren't dangerous for society, then we'll talk about the implications of Google having access to information people give them.

We should clean up all other laws before we consider regulating Google? I'd like that place in line, too. How much does it cost?

Don't look at what I do until the Ogallala Aquifer is properly protected!

Not leaking a half-baked version of a movie trailer is dangerous for society?