Interesting Associated Press article about comments made by the Motion Picture Association’s number two Asia guy, Michael Ellis. This is a guy that has been around Asia a long time and understands the system, but his comments on film imports and a supposed direct connection with film piracy have me a bit puzzled.

An American film industry official said Thursday that China should lift barriers that block most movie imports, warning that they are fueling its thriving market for pirated titles and hurting Chinese studios.

OK, to start with, please note that the MPA is made up of the big U.S. movie studios, who have been hammering at this issue for years. (Full disclosure: I used to do a lot of work for Sony Television and Columbia Pictures in China.) Despite the lobbying, China still only imports 20 movies a year for theatrical release. Let’s also admit that piracy of movies here is widespread, harmful to studios, and should stop immediately.

All this being stipulated, are import limits really making the piracy problem here worse? If you say yes, than it must mean that there are a lot of folks out there who would prefer to see these movies in a China cinema, but since that is not available, they have to go out and buy a pirated DVD.

I don’t buy it. Sure, it’s possible that there are some people who would like to go see more foreign movies here, but trying to figure out how many is really problematic. Keep in mind that theatrical screenings here are not cheap. Also keep in mind that a movie on DVD, a pirated one, costs less than one U.S. dollar, and movies that are downloaded cost essentially zero. Seeing a movie on the big screen is nice, but it’s tough to compete against that pricing structure.

Film piracy is believed to have cost American studios $244 million in lost potential box office revenues in China last year, said Ellis.

I would sure like to know where that number comes from. As an IP lawyer, I would much prefer to deal with the issue of movie piracy as a straight copyright problem instead of trying to bring these trade and regulatory issues into the mix. Establishing some sort of link between the two seems like a stretch.