Pirates’ preference for tights and capes is nothing new. Last year’s top pirated film by a large margin was the Batman sequel The Dark Knight, which was downloaded well in excess of 7 million times, by Big Champagne’s rough count.

More significant may be the enormous growth in peer-to-peer downloads. The Dark Knight’s 7 million downloads wouldn’t even place the film in this year’s top 10 pirated films. Even marginally successful films like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Transporter 3 were pirated close to 8 million times so far this year.

That overall growth in piracy seems to show that users’ gradual switch from peer-to-peer music downloads to legal streaming music sources may not extend to video piracy. In a widely read report published in July, analyst firm Music Ally reported that illegal music downloads in Britain had fallen by a quarter between December 2007 and January of this year as young users increasingly used ad-supported free streaming services like Spotify and Last.fm.