A number of Sony movies have been leaked following the Sony Pictures hack last week, according to reports. At least five movies are circulating on file-sharing sites, and while unreleased films including Mr Turner and Annie are being pirated before a theatrical release, the recent Fury is claimed to be receiving a considerable amount of attention, despite still being shown in cinemas.
Piracy-tracking form Excipio told Variety that Fury had been downloaded by over 1.2 million unique IP addresses since November 27th, making it the second most-downloaded movie currently being shared. The other pirated films are not getting as much traction as Fury, with Annie managing to reach 206,000 downloads, more than the other three less popular leaked films have been downloaded collectively.
A Sony spokeswoman told the report “The theft of Sony Pictures Entertainment content is a criminal matter, and we are working closely with law enforcement to address it.”
The attack on the Sony Pictures network was claimed to be the work of a group identifying themselves as the Guardians of Peace or #GOP, but at least one report suggests the intrusion could have been performed by hackers on behalf of North Korea. Sources of Recode claim the attack coincides with the upcoming release of The Interview, a comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco about journalists enlisted by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Security consultants are said to be investigating whether the hack is connected to North Korea in some way such as being performed by third parties based in China, but a link has yet to be confirmed.
