Spider-Man 3 Video Fakes Hit China

Reuters reported yesterday that pirated copies of “Spider-Man 3″ are already on the streets of Beijing.

China’s infamous movie pirates have done it again — “Spider-Man 3″ is already being sold on Beijing’s streets almost two weeks ahead of its U.S. premier. Costing just over $1 apiece, the pirated DVDs appear to be of the actual movie, complete with a picture of the hero in a new, black spider suit which he wears for some of the film. There is even a warning on the back, printed in Chinese, against pirating the product.

It turns out, these movies are fakes.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has said that DVDs in China that were reported to be pirated copies of widely anticipated “Spider-Man 3″ are in fact copies of its predecessor, “Spider-Man 2.”

“Contrary to news reports about stolen copies of Spider-Man 3 being sold illegally on the streets in China, our investigation in China has revealed no case of the film being pirated to date,” Sony Pictures said in a statement. “After an initial investigation of online sites worldwide, we have so far found no pirated copies of ‘Spider-Man 3′ on the Internet,” Sony added.

Reports of the illegal copies highlight the speed with which some movie pirates work to put fake DVDs on the street, and Sony’s response underscores the determination of Hollywood’s studios to stop the piracy they say costs them billions of dollars annually in lost revenues.

Of course, Sony has every incentive to lie here, too, so the fakes might not actually be fakes. Or, I guess, they’d be fake fakes.

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