The answer appears to be yes. In a great Techdirt article by Mike Masnick, it is revealed that The Dark Knight was simultaneously the highest grossing and most pirated film of the year. But how is this possible? After all, the movie industry is claiming that the reason The Dark Knight made so much money was because of their anti-piracy efforts. The movie industry's willful ignorance of what actually drives sales is not only stunning, but has a real effect on their resource allocation decisions.

Using the misinformation that anti-piracy efforts are what drive higher movie sales, a studio executive would logically invest more money in anti-piracy efforts, and less in the movie's actual development. For all the confused studio executives out there we offer a bit of useful, albeit unsolicited advice: Invest your money in making movies that people want to watch. Or said another way - build it and they will come.