It doesn't hurt his legitimacy at all if anything it increases it because their is a high demand for his product that people just don't want to pay full price for. Hollywood wouldn't be bootlegging the shyt to increase it's circulation if they were against it they would be blocking it
No.
You can't present bootleg sales as official units.
Its the same thing with illegal downloads of music. It doesn't count and its hard to present to advertisers because its not certified data.
Tariq spends thousands out his own pocket to make these films and present them. Rent ONE theater is expensive. Renting 20x that amount around the country is unheard of for a truly indie filmmaker. Especially one about black history. Its damn near unheard of. Its unprecedented.
Hollywood has been rumored to do this all the time. The music industry does it too. Look at August Alsina just bytching about def jam.