Hollywood studios employees caught pirating films

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Published time: December 26, 2012 10:39
Edited time: December 26, 2012 14:40

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Internet, Movies, Piracy

The US movie industry claims online piracy is costing it billions of dollars in lost revenues. However, data released by TorrentFreak shows “BitTorrent piracy is rampant in Hollywood” where studios employees are busy pirating films.

“Hollywood isn’t without ‘sin’ when it comes to piracy. The MPAA and others lobby very hard for anti-piracy measures, but can’t even stop piracy in the offices of their own member studios,” Torrentfreak.com reported.

The website dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing claims “BitTorrent piracy is rampant in Hollywood.”

Torrentfreak published some of the files that Hollywood studios were sharing; starting with Paramount Pictures who’s static IP-addresses were associated with the downloading of a wide variety of content. The indie production “Battle Force” was one of the movies shared, as well as the Lionsgate film “The Hunger Games”. However, the list also included “Happy Feet”, a movie distributed by competitor Warner Bros.

Paramount PictuScreenshot from http://torrentfreak.com

According to TorrentFreak, film insiders at Warner Bros. were also frequent BitTorrent users, with “a particular interest in adult entertainment” and “The Expendables 2” among the titles that were allegedly downloaded via Warner Bros. IP-addresses.

The website said Sony Picture employees, among others, were sharing games, TV-shows and movies at work, such as 20th Century Fox’s Ice Age: Continental Drift, and an episode of Top Chef.

Warner Bros.SScreenshot from http://torrentfreak.com

“The above is no surprise of course,” TorrentFreak wrapped up, saying that last year the now defunct website YouHaveDownloaded had already revealed that BitTorrent was used at “virtually every company”.

Comments (23)

will (unregistered) 27.12.2012 23:34

It's certainly conceivable that the alleged piracy attributed to the studios is a "honeypot" intended to track and/or counteract piracy.

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fred c. schwartz (unregistered) 27.12.2012 15:31

tax the rich: tax hollywood!!
we need a special tax for these rich goons.how about a 75% tax on movie profits and contract wagesfor the actors ?
what do you think barbra streisand ?what do you think michael moore ?

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Bakster (unregistered) 27.12.2012 15:30

I can see a new defense to anyone being sued by the studios now for downloading their movies... If it was a Warner Brothers movie and the Warner Brothers IP address is also seeding the movie then you could claim that you felt that it was not an illegal download since it was being done by the studio itself.

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