It is an ever-present evil in the film industry that continually bites holes in not just the pockets of Hollywood’s mega-corporations, but also in the pockets of independent filmmakers. I am of course talking about piracy. Often perceived as a victimless crime, piracy is anything but and now this year’s figures and facts on piracy are in. According to piracy-tracking company Excipio, 2014’s Interstellaris the most-pirated film of the year, raking up 46 million illegal downloads.
Christopher Nolan‘s Science-Fiction epic ranks just ahead of Fast & Furious 7 with 44 million and Avengers: Age of Ultron with 41 million. The figures are disturbing because they reveal that overall illegal downloads have increased from last year. The Wolf of Wall Street, last year’s most pirated film, was downloaded 30 million times – Interstellar has been pirated almost 50% more than this.
The most recent piece of pirating news concerned Quentin Tarantino‘s The Hateful 8. The Hollywood Reporter claims that an awards-season DVD copy of his latest Western, which was sent to a Hollywood Studio Executive, turned up on illegal download sites and was only identified because of a digital watermark. To see Excipio’s list of the most pirated films of the year, scroll down. All in all, another wonderful year for the film industry, isn’t it?
1. Interstellar – 46,762,310 downloads
2. Fast & Furious 7 – 44,794,877
3. Avengers: Age of Ultron – 41,594,159
4. Jurassic World – 36,881,763
5. Mad Max: Fury Road – 36,443,244
6. American Sniper – 33,953,737
7. Fifty Shades of Grey – 32,126,827
8. The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies – 31,574,872
9. Terminator: Genisys – 31,001,480
10. The Secret Service – 30,922,987
11. Focus – 26,792,863
12. San Andreas – 25,883,469
13. Minions – 23,495,140
14. Inside Out – 22,734,070
#Peace.Love.Piracy
