Sony Pictures Entertainment has been under a cyber-attack since last week. The hackers made good on their threats over the weekend by releasing several full-length files of Sony movies, some of which have yet to be released in theaters.
On the relatively bright side for Sony, Fury is seeing the most widespread piracy by far, and it’s been in theaters for almost two months. So the damage on that one isn’t quite so bad, though it’ll surely cut into the film’s home video sales and rentals. Among the other titles leaked were the Annie remake, Mr. Turner, Still Alice, and To Write Love on Her Arms—all releasing later this month except To Write Love on Her Arms.
Variety notes that Sony is hoping the other titles won’t see nearly as much as Fury‘s 1.2 million downloads, because the other films probably don’t skew towards the illegal download crowd. They reported that Annie was only up to 184,000, and the others were all below 100,000 downloads.
Sony has been facing threats from the “Guardians of Peace” hacker group with names of files that they’d release unless their demands were met, though the demands themselves still aren’t public knowledge.
Sony Comes To A Screeching Halt Targeted By Massive Ransomware Hack http://t.co/j7snMDgi01 – #Fantasy pic.twitter.com/ADcfNUucye
— Fantasy Authors (@FantasyAuthors) November 24, 2014
And it seems that they weren’t bluffing. There’s also still no news on who’s really behind the attack, and Sony has reportedly brought in federal law enforcement to investigate. Meanwhile, Re/code has reported that the attack may be linked to upcoming Sony film The Interview and could be part of North Korea’s promised “resolute and merciless” response to that movie, despite how that sounds like the plot of a South Park episode.
We’re still holding onto the theory that it’s Marvel fans who want Spider-Man in with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though if it’s not, there’s a whole ton of nerds who would be willing to help you find out who is responsible in exchange for some Spider-Rights, Sony. Just saying.
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Published: Dec 1, 2014 06:03 pm