SINGAPORE -- People who download movies off the Internet are "thieves" who threaten the potential of the film industry, Tom Cruise said Tuesday.
The actor, who was in Singapore promoting his new movie, Vanilla Sky, said he was optimistic that the film industry would find a way to stem the rise of intellectual property theft.
"We want to make movies, and in order to do that they (the films) have to be able to pay for themselves," Cruise told reporters at a news conference, which his girlfriend and co-star, Penelope Cruz, and director Cameron Crowe also attended. "So we're doing everything we can to try to curb it and to limit it."
Modern technology is making it easier to copy movies and music. Pirated movies and music are rife in Asia.
But Crowe said technology also is helping people break into the film industry, particularly into directing. Many new directors get started by making amateur films and e-mailing them to their friends.
"In the future, everybody is going to be a director," he said. "Somebody's got to live a real life so we have something to make a movie about."
Pirated movies are available in Singapore, but officials have been cracking down hard on intellectual property theft. In April, the high-tech city-state was removed from a U.S. government blacklist of nations where intellectual property piracy is most severe.
