The claim that is caused tens of millions in lost revenue is always funny to me. It is the same argument used to push DRM everywhere. The fact is, a lot (if not most) people that downloaded the movies or shows would not have paid for it in the first place. So it is not lost revenue.
There's no doubt that SPARKS pre-releases cost the studios millions. When you release a terrible movie ahead of the opening weekend, the rumor spreads quickly that the movie is terrible. Normally, that effect would be part of (and swamped by) the 2nd weekend drop, but now it's part of your opening weekend.
For good movies it probably doesn't make much of a difference. But most movies are not good. There's a huge gambling element to seeing a movie, and a leak gives away the outcome.
As you can see (sorted by oldest because surprisingly many things have sparks in their name), it's mainly retail rips.
In fact, few scene releases before COVID would actually impact theatrical openings, since the movies only get released weeks/months later on phyiscal media/streaming. The only thing you get before are crappy camrips/telesyncs.
They do however usually manage to acquire the media a few weeks before the street date, which is why streaming releases are now a few weeks before the physical media releases.
Or they're already making money from the pirates. Case in point, some streaming services don't support linux and some Android devices because of Widevine DRM problems. So it creates the perverse situation in which (expensively) paid content is harder (impossible) to access vs the same pirated content.
Yet from a software perspective I always saw sales drop when a cracked version of my software was released and increases when I tightened the DRM. This is a niche product sold B2B.
Adding DRM has a cost and I'd rather not do it but it's quite clear to me that not having it would impact revenue.
i like the numbers they come up in some of those lawsuits. i have uhh...heard of people that have robbed the entertaintment industry of roughly the world gdp. if you go by their numbers.
