Zut Alors! Illegal Downloads Top Box Office Sales in France

French cinephiles are illegally downloading from the Internet as many films as they pay to see in theaters. This according to a new study from the Association Against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA) that was–My God, THE IRONY–itself leaked to the Internet without its creator’s knowledge or consent. One of the largest studies of its kind, the ALPA effort found that 13.5 million films were illegally downloaded in May, while box office ticket sales for that month were 12.2 million. On average, more than 10 million copies of films are illegally downloaded in France every month. Some 450,000 copies are downloaded daily. Incroyable, but true. “We are facing a major phenomenon that can endanger the film industry and (other) audiovisual industries,” ALPA director Frederic Delacroix told Agence France-Presse. “We did not expect such numbers.”