Piracy Doesn't Affect U.S. Box Office Returns
 

Another study that claims piracy doesn't have an impact on movie ticket sales in the U.S. was published today. The reason? Pirates weren't going to pay to see the movie in the first place. Oddly enough, the study DID find that piracy abroad hurt ticket sales. In a paper titled 'Reel Piracy: The Effect of Online Film Piracy on International Box Office Sales' researchers from the University of Minnesota and Wellesley College examine the link between BitTorrent piracy and box office returns. As hypothesized, they find that international movie piracy losses are directly linked to the delay between US and foreign premieres. In other words, the longer it takes before a movie is released internationally, the more box office revenues are impacted through piracy.

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2012/02/...ffice_returns/