Researchers Find Megaupload Shutdown Hurt Box Office Revenues

An anonymous reader writes "We've heard this one before, over and over again: pirates are the biggest spenders. It therefore shouldn't surprise too many people to learn that shutting down Megaupload earlier this year had a negative effect on box office revenues. The latest finding comes from a paper titled: 'Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload.'"

Comments

Does it or does it not

[Jakkas]

If Megaupload did hurt box office sales, then they obviously hosted lots of pirated material. This is against how the pirates are saying that Megaupload was mostly used for non-piracy related files. So did they host mainly pirated movies etc or did it not?

Re:Does it or does it not

[fustakrakich]

Or, you know, somebody could develop a secure operating system that's not so easily compromised, but where's the money in that, eh? You can't secure a network with takedowns, which serve no purpose outside of censorship.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

A major piracy website is shut down. The following year, movie sales are down. Therefore, shutting down major piracy websites hurt the box office. If this is the best argument against the MPAA's Stasi-like tactics, we are in a world of hurt. Further proof that America has finally jumped the shark.