Revenge of the File Sharers
Monday, May 23, 2005
I have to admit that I was not going to go to “Revenge of the Sith”. After the “Episode I” installment of Star Wars, I decided that it was not worth the trouble to see the smoking remains of the wonderful series that stimulated in me a short interest in Science Fiction and a lifetime crush on Harrison Ford.
I was not going to go to “Revenge of the Sith”
But when I found out that the movie was available on the internet, I decided to give it a try. I went to my source for all things internet, Frank, a friend of James Skippenofsky. Fortunately, he already had a few thousand copies made and stacked in a corner of Skippy’s basement.
Sith broke every record for opening day box office receipts
Ironically, despite the insistence that the film was irrevocably damaged by file sharing, Sith broke every record for opening day box office receipts. It can only be guessed that if Sith was not shared on the internet, it would have made 50 bijillion dollars, aligned the planets, allowed universal understanding and brought about world peace. But thanks to an internet application called bittorrent, we’ll never have that.
MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman recently said, “There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith.” This is definitely true, for if I had paid $30 for tickets and snacks to watch this movie in the theater with my partner, there is no way that we would have fallen asleep after the first half hour.
Adrian Chevelle, Senior Entertainment Correspondent
