A number of movies have been pirated and leaked over the past few weeks, including Quentin Tarantino's new movie, The Hateful Eight, which isn't even out in cinemas yet.
The team behind the leak was reportedly a group called Hive-CM8, which has claimed to be behind leaks of a number of other films. After FBI attention, however, the group seemed to have disappeared. Now, however, Hive-CM8 has returned.
While it has returned to leak a few new movies, including Anomalisa and The Big Short, it has also issued a somewhat bizarre apology to Quentin Tarantino, explaining its position. According to Hive-CM8, it leaks its movies to help those not able to go to the movies, and asserts that those who can afford to support filmmakers should do so by going to the cinema and paying for the movie. It then spoke about The Hateful Eight.
"We feel sorry for the trouble we caused by releasing that great movie before cinedate even has begun. We never intended to hurt anyone by doing that[;] we didn't know it would get that popular that quickly," said Hive-CM8 in its apology.
In the description for The Big Short, Hive-CM8 says that it waited until a week after the film had premiered to release it, hoping to give it a fighting chance to make money. "We learned from our mistake," said the description.
Interestingly enough, Hive-CM8 even argues that its leaks help movie releases. It says that the media buzz it has created about The Hateful Eight has cause everyone to be talking about it, so now, people will want to see what all the fuss is about — with only one problem, though — they don't have to pay to see what all the fuss is about.
Source: Business Insider