Poor Paramount.

Online pirates pinched more than 20 million copies of “Star Trek” and the sequel to “Transformers,” giving those two Paramount Pictures releases the dubious distinction of being the most ripped-off films of the year, according to a report released by file-sharing tracking service TorrentFreak.

Though the “Transformers” sequel bested “Star Trek” at the box office, Trekkie faves Kirk and Spock were more popular than morphing car-robots among digital thieves.

TorrentFreak reported that “Star Trek” was illegally downloaded just under 11 million times, while 10.6 million copies of “Transformers” were lifted.

While precise data is hard to come by, the pirated copies certainly seem to have cost the studio. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, worldwide revenue at the Viacom-owned studio fell $535 million, or 13 percent, to $3.7 billion.

“Transformers” still ranks as 2009’s highest-grossing film at the domestic box office, raking in $402 million, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. “Star Trek” pulled in $258 million in the US during its run, putting it at No. 6.

Other movies on TorrentFreak’s top 10 most illegally downloaded list include hits like “The Hangover,” “Twilight,” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” all of which also rank in the top 10 in terms of box-office gross…

[continues in the New York Post]

“This will definitely echo around the halls of Viacom in New York,” said Don Harris, executive VP of distribution for Paramount on Sunday, shortly after it was announced that “Paranormal Activity” would lead the weekend box office with $22 million.

Harris’ jubilation was understandable.

Set to further expand its run this weekend from 1,945 locations to around 2,400, and having grossed $65.1 million through Wednesday on a sub-$15,000 production budget, “Paranormal” has already exceeded the film it is most often compared to, “The Blair Witch Project,” as the most profitable movie of all time.

“Blair Witch’s” $248.6 million worldwide haul a decade ago – juxtaposed against its $60,000 production costs – represented an almost unthinkable 414,233 percent return on investment.

Doing the same basic ROI math on “Paranormal” (65.1 million minus 15,000 divided by 15,000 times 100) yields an equally unfathomable result of 433,900 percent…