…they kinda did release a similar statement:

Last night, a stolen, incomplete and early version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine was posted illegally on websites. It was without many effects and had missing scenes and temporary sound and music.

Of course, then they go on to the legal threatening you mentioned:

We immediately contacted the appropriate legal authorities and had it removed. We forensically mark our content so we can identify sources that make it available or download it. The source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law – the courts have handed down significant criminal sentences for such acts and the last person who committed such a crime is still in jail. The FBI and the MPAA also are actively investigating this crime. We are encouraged by the support of fansites condemning piracy and this illegal posting and pointing out that such theft undermines the enormous efforts of the filmmakers and actors, and above all, hurts the fans of the film.

from http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40609

…the NY Times article was written by the same reporter who recently wrote an article basically repeating unproven movie studio claims that piracy was damaging its business — a point disproved weeks later in the same NY Times (by a different reporter) noting that the movie business is seeing a huge surge in attendance.

Sigh. Once again, we’re confusing assumptions and opinion as facts. The NYT story about increased attendance in no way “disproves” anything about the harm caused by piracy. There are any number of other reasons why attendance is up, and the Times article cites a number of them, including actual interviews with people about why they’re going to the movies (it’s often cheaper than some other entertainment options). It is only your by assumption that piracy always equals “promotion” and never affects tickets sales that you can make this claim. It’s a baseless claim with no backing evidence.

As has been pointed out over and over again, there’s very little evidence that movie “piracy” cannibalizes film attendance. That’s why the most “pirated” films are also the biggest box office hits.

There is very little direct, concrete evidence that piracy harms ticket sales because there has been very little research in this area. If you’re going to claim as bogus industry figures that piracy costs the industry billions of dollars because there is little actual research, just assumptions, you really shouldn’t engage in the exact same sort of leaping logic. At least the industry can point to the number of downloads and calculate what should have been paid for those downloads. That figure may be inaccurate, but at least its a figure.

And your statement that piracy helps films because the most pirated films are the biggest hits is laughable. It would be more accurate to say that the biggest hits are the most pirated films because those are the ones that pirates most want to see without paying.

If anything, it seems the real fear is that the version that’s been released isn’t very good — and that’s what will keep people away from seeing the film in the theater.

Of course it is! How could it be otherwise? This is the most frequent self-serving assumption I see here in comments. If leaked content is successful, it can only be because piracy helped promote it. If leaked content is unsuccessful, it can only be because the product isn’t very good. There is no possibility that piracy reduced demand at the theater. Once again, taking assumptions as fact.

If you don’t think studios should go after criminals–and keep in mind that pre-release copying or “sharing” isn’t just civil infringement, it’s criminal infringement–what other criminal acts should we just ignore? Let’s let Bernie Madoff out, too, while we’re at it.

Dear Weird Harold,

You are wrong. Again. If you cant accept it, please go bother people somewhere else. Here is why you are wrong, for THE LAST TIME:

Copyright infringement is often equated with theft, for instance in the title of the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997, but differs in certain respects.

Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for instance, in Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not (for the purpose of the case) constitute stolen property, and writing:

interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: … ‘an infringer of the copyright.’ …

The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.
—Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207, pp. 217–218

The key distinction generally drawn, as indicated above, is that while copyright infringement may (or may not) cause economic loss to the copyright holder, as theft does, it does not appropriate a physical object, nor deprive the copyright holder of the use of the copyright. That information can be replicated without destroying an original is an old observation,[53] and a cornerstone of intellectual property law. In economic terms, information is not a rival good; this has led some to argue that it is very different in character, and that laws for physical property and intellectual property should be very different.[54]

Let me point out one key part again:

“That information can be replicated without destroying an original is an old observation,[53] and a cornerstone of intellectual property law. “

Source: Wikipedia AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO ISNT IN THE ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS. This is WIDELY known law and there is NUMEROUS CASE LAW to back it up. This guy didnt “steal” anything, he infringed on the copyright. PLEASE shut the fuck up now.