Hackers claim to have stolen Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and demand ransom | Hacker News Reader

Hackers claim to have stolen Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and demand ransom

theverge.com

36 pointsphr4ts13 comments

Disney will certainly be quite happy to have this much free advertising for a movie that is going to start being shown in cinemas in a few days.

It's hilarious to claim that the leak of Expendables 3 was the reason it flopped on the big screen. But of course, if I were responsible for the movie, I would clutch at any straw possible.

It's very much heads I win, tails you lose for Disney.

Free advertising (heck I didn't know this was coming out but now I'll probably see it), and more ammunition to bend the law to prop up their business model.

I wonder if the pirates think that this will really do anything. The people that were already going to pirate it, are going to pirate it, but now they can get a better source earlier. This isn't going to really affect people going to the movies to see it though; most people who pirate wouldn't have seen it in theaters anyway, and those that now know you can probably won't.

You can only ransom something if that something has value to the ransomee. I'm not a Disney exec, but I don't really think threatening to leak the movie has much value.

Right, we're only ten days away from when the movie would be all over torrent sites anyway, whether it was leaked pre-release or not.

Im sure there's some group of people who are impatient and would have seen it in theaters to avoid the crappy hand camera version (or waiting), but instead can now just pirate it and can watch it asap.

> I'm not a Disney exec, but I don't really think threatening to leak the movie has much value.

Worst case is that the leak enables negative word of mouth before the films even hit a screen, but execs would only worry about that if they already were insecure about the film. Don't know if that's the case for PotC 5.

I don't buy it.

Watching a big-budget movie in a theater and watching a pirated version are two activities so dissimilar as not to affect each other at all.

If we were talking about Netflix shows, or DVD releases, then maybe piracy would impact the sales, but a big Disney movie? Nah.

These pirates are either stupid, or non-existent and created by Disney itself.

Considering a good portion of my friends stopped going to cinemas all together in favor of watching movies at home, I would say the two actives are similar enough to affect each other.

>Watching a big-budget movie in a theater and watching a pirated version are two activities so dissimilar as not to affect each other at all.

Dunno, I'd certainly go to the cinema much less if I could just download bluray remuxes on opening nights.

I'd say the biggest difference between the two is the fact that one is available for months before the other.

I think you're right, with the operative phrase being big budget. The only time I go to the movies is to see big budget, special effects laden films -- or strangely enough horror movies.

If they were threatening to force us to watch it, I'd say pay the ransom post-haste.

The irony of pirates/thieves leveraging the populations interest in pirates/thieves in order to siphon money out of the most dangerous mental pirate of them all - the behemoth that programs (and compromises) the minds of children to dream of being a prince or princess, to elevate the self above others.

I bet the author, Jacob Kastrenakes, was well chuffed when he got to write a headline like that.

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