Five Sony Movies Leak Online After Hacker Attack: 'Fury', 'Annie', More

Sony's intellectual property is compromised, as five of their new movies have leaked online following an attack by hackers several days ago.

DVD Screeners of five films are circulating around file-sharing/torrent sites, and while the leaked files include movies that have yet to be released, the most popular of the five films is one that came out over a month ago. Fury, the war movie starring Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf, has been downloaded by over 1.2 million unique IP addresses after hitting P2P networks on November 27th, which makes this the second most-pirated movie in the world at the moment.

Meanwhile, the upcoming remake of Annie was also among the films to hit the web, and it's also being widely pirated. Over 206,000 unique IP addresses have downloaded the film, which isn't due out for another three weeks. The other three Sony movies to leak -- Mr. Turner, Still Alice, and To Write Love on Her Arms -- haven't been downloaded nearly as much, although their awards prospects (particularly Still Alice, which features potential Best Actress frontrunner Julianne Moore as a woman suffering from early onset Alzheimer's disease) mean they're still sought after. Mr. Turner and To Write Love on Her Arms have less than 100,000 unique downloads each, while Still Alice is currently up to 103,832 downloads.

Naturally, Sony is less than thrilled.

“The theft of Sony Pictures Entertainment content is a criminal matter, and we are working closely with law enforcement to address it,” a Sony spokeswoman said in a statement.

Further details from Variety:

In the attack on the studio’s corporate systems Nov. 24, an image of a skeleton appeared on company computers with a message that said, “Hacked by #GOP,” with the group behind it calling itself “Guardians of Peace.” The message threatened to release “secrets and top secrets” of the company. Currently being investigated is a connection between upcoming Sony movie “The Interview,” and North Korea.

Sony’s outbreak marks the biggest piracy incident since July, when Lionsgate saw “Expendables 3? pop up online three weeks before its theatrical release. Police arrested two men in London earlier this week in connection with the stolen file.

This is a major blow to Sony, which had been earning solid box office numbers from Fury, a film that is still playing nationwide. Of course, if there's any comfort for Sony in this, it's that the people downloading the movie likely wouldn't have gone to the theater to see it anyway. Having something free can compel a person to sample something they might not have sampled otherwise. That said, it's still a really lousy thing to do, and it speaks to a certain entitlement mentality that pervades the piracy culture. It's distressing, but unless the law gets involved, it doesn't look like it's stopping any time soon.

Via: Variety

Credit: Columbia Pictures/Sony