With the Academy Awards approaching, screeners had been submitted to voters for consideration. The process, however, proved once again to not be 100-percent secure. Piracy groups, including Hive-CM8, have taken credit for leaks, having managed to get their hands on unauthorized versions of several films and posted them online.
Among the films recently leaked are Joy, starring Jennifer Lawrence; Michael Fassbender’s Steve Jobs; Carol with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara; Brie Larson’s Room; and more. Excipio’s data showed that The Revenant was in highest demand (over 739,580 unique IP addresses downloaded the film in a 24-hour period). The Hateful Eight and Creed followed, accessed by 569,153 and 499,082 IP addresses, respectively.
In years past, watermarks on screeners gave more information about the leaks, but that is reportedly not the case this year. The copy of The Hateful Eight doesn’t contain timestamps or watermarks, according to Torrent Freak. As the website points out, it’s certainly not the Ultra Panavision 70mm format that Tarantino has been excited to bring to moviegoers, but evidently, many viewers haven’t been deterred.
For all of the films involved, the leaks are bad news, but it is especially so for those that had not yet hit theaters. That’s the case for both The Revenant and The Hateful Eight, so it’s not surprising that they led downloads in the 24-hour period measured. The two films are set to hit theaters on Christmas Day.
