Canoe's JAM! reports from Cannes that the Flanneled One is not impressed with digital piracy:

CANNES -- Rampant worldwide piracy of movies is threatening the future of large-scale Hollywood productions, Star Wars creator George Lucas said yesterday.

Lucas told a Cannes Film Festival press conference that filmmakers are helpless now. Something dramatic needs to be done in the future, he said, to control those who steal movies and put them on the Internet or illegally put them out as DVDs and videotapes.

"There's not much at this point that anyone can do about it," Lucas said. "The whole issue of piracy and copyright in the digital age is a very, very large issue. If control isn't exercised in some form or another, it's going to be very hard for many people to stay in business." Smaller films will be the result, he said.

Pirated video discs of the $120-million Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack Of The Clones, which played Cannes yesterday in a special screening, reportedly are being sold in Asia for as little as 30 cents US in Manila and from $1.50 to $3 in Malaysia.

Reports in the Los Angeles Times that Attack Of The Clones is already on the Internet are false, Lucas said. "As of (Wednesday)," he said, "so far it is not. Nobody has been able to find it."

People have filmed it in theatres with personal digital cameras for possible transfer to the Internet, Lucas said. "The real problem in piracy has to do with the small cameras that you can take into theatres and that's how 90% of the piracy occurs." The piracy issue is one of the main reasons why he chose to release Clones worldwide, Lucas said.

Thanks to Perry Hunchak for the heads-up.