Wednesday, November 11 12:00 AM ET

MPAA Studios to Liquidate Due to Losses from Movie Piracy

By Brian Briggs follow me on Twitter.

Los Angeles, CA - The six major movie studios and their subsidiaries that form the Motion Picture Association of America (Paramount, Sony, Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox) will all file for bankruptcy and liquidate their assets due to losses from Internet movie piracy.

With weekly losses estimated to be in the billions of dollars, and with exploding availability of broadband Internet connections across the world, studios decided it would be easier to liquidate than to face a grim future buried under red ink.

"Our member studios have decided this is the best course of action," said MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman. "I hope everyone who downloaded a movie on the Internet is happy."

The closures will have a rippling effect throughout the entire economy. Movie stars will not longer be able to wear expensive jewelry and clothes for free. Movie executives may be forced to sell one of their yachts.

Independent filmmakers look at the big studio closures as an opportunity. "All these big movie stars will be looking for work, and CSI can only have so many guest stars a week," said Bob Muffin of Vanguard Crackhammer Studios. "Without Pirates of the Caribbean 4 or Spider-Man 4 or Saw XII available to theaters, they'll have to show our movies like The Squid's Beak and Xylophones and Cattails."

Many critics of movie studios' past efforts to stop piracy, call the latest effort "idiotic." Mike Madsen from TechGrime said, "By stopping the production of all movies the studios will make piracy the only option for people wanting to see movies. The studios need to come up with a new business model other than declaring bankruptcy and liquidating assets if they want to stay in business."

The MPAA expects the liquidation of assets to be complete by July of 2010 with the final studio release, Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, to premiere July 28.