Quentin Tarantino's newest film "The Hateful Eight" leaked a week before its big screen premiere, Dec 25.
The reason behind the leak was traced to have originated from awards-season DVD screeners. DVD screeners are copies sent to leading Hollywood studio executives for early reviews and judging.
The identity of the group that leaked the blockbuster movie goes by a collective name, Hive-CM8. The hacker group released to album via torrent sites. On the first day of its upload, the pirated movie was downloaded more than 200,000 times.
Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" was not the only movie that was pirated and uploaded via torrent by the Hive-CM8. Other year-end blockbusters were also leaked by the hack group. High-budget films like The Revenant, Creed and Legend were not spared from leak.
The hack group disclosed that they have hacked more than 40 hollywood films and they will be uploading them soon. In a statement they said: "DVDScreener 1 of 40, will do them all one after each other, started with the hottest title of this year, the rest will follow,""
The movies that were hacked are sure candidates for movie awards like the Oscars, Golden Globe, and all prominent award-giving bodies. This means that the uploading and downloading of these high-profile films will surely affect the revenue of its producers.
The source of the hacked DVD screeners have already been traced, according to Hollywood Reporter. The watermark on the leaked films was linked to the name of Andrew Kosove, co-CEO of Alcon Enterainment.
Kosove is working in cooperation with the FBI to investigate how the films were stolen. Kosove denies taking part in the piracy saying, "I've never seen this DVD." He announced that apart from their cooperation with the FBI, they will also be conduction their own investigation.
This is not the first time the "The Hateful Eight" became a center for leaks. Last year, the manuscripts for the film has also leaked.
