Feds On The Trail Of Wolverine Pirates

Logan Westbrook

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Feb 21, 2008
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Feds On The Trail Of Wolverine Pirates


The FBI are investigating the source of a leaked version of the upcoming Wolverine movie.

On Tuesday, an incomplete version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine was leaked on to file-sharing sites where it was downloaded an estimated 100,000 times. 20th Century Fox described the leaked copy as a "stolen, incomplete and early version" and "was without many effects and had missing scenes and temporary sound and music."

One user wrote on film website aintitcool.com, "The CGI is missing and the movie looks horrible without it... even if you see the work print you're still going to have to go see it in the theatre to fully experience the full movie with CGI effects fully intact."

Fox quickly had the film removed, and then informed the FBI, who are said to be "actively investigating" the crime. The studio added that their content is forensically marked, so they should be able to trace the person who uploaded it. One possible lead is the brief caption at the beginning of the film which reads 'Rising Sun Pictures' and is dated 2 March, 2009. Rising Sun is an Australian visual effects company that worked on the film, although they were understandably quick to deny any involvement.

In a statement, the company's chairman, Tony Clark, said "From the reports we've had, the stolen material is a work in progress version of the film with many incomplete sections. As we worked on individual sequences within the film, neither RSP nor its staff members have ever been in possession of a full-length version, so it would have been impossible for the movie to have been leaked from here."

"It's common practice for work in progress between us and the production to carry vendor watermarks and for these works in progress to be integrated into various edits of the film for screenings, which would explain why our name appears," he added.

Source: BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7978379.stm]



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the_tramp

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May 16, 2008
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Hugh's going to go postal on their asses :)

How can they realistically say 100,000 times, I know you could look at seeders but it would spread throughout a load of rapidshare accounts and torrents so it'd be hard to count. Is this just one of those figures they say to make it look more dramatic?

Obviously Rising Sun denied it but I'm sure it'll be found out soon and prosecuted... individual people were only given small parts of the film to work on so it must've been someone high up who had access to the whole thing.
 

Skrapt

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May 6, 2008
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the_tramp said:
Obviously Rising Sun denied it but I'm sure it'll be found out soon and prosecuted... individual people were only given small parts of the film to work on so it must've been someone high up who had access to the whole thing.
Personally I don't think Rising Sun has done anything, they've dealt with many high profile releases before and it's incredible how paranoid the studios are about never giving up more of the movie then is required to get some work done. It's more likely to be someone in the studio/someone in a company the studio hired to take the movie and distribute parts of it to those who needed it.
 

nova18

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Feb 2, 2009
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Sorry, the FBI?
The american Federal Bureau of Investigations is hunting down someone that uploaded a half-finished movie?

Im British so I know nothing of the FBI outside of TV and films but...dont they have aliens to catch?
 

Turtleboy1017

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Nov 16, 2008
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Hmm, I downloaded it so does that mean I'm a felon? Cool I've always wanted to be a badass cyber criminal.

And as long as I exist this movie will have at least one seeder. Off to Piratebay everyone!
 

oliveira8

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Feb 2, 2009
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nova18 said:
Sorry, the FBI?
The american Federal Bureau of Investigations is hunting down someone that uploaded a half-finished movie?

Im British so I know nothing of the FBI outside of TV and films but...dont they have aliens to catch?
The FBI covers mainly criminal thingies that are a question of national spread. Like catching criminals that are hunted in more than 1 state and other crimes.

At least is what I think it is...
 

SmilingKitsune

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I know it's off-topic but does anyone else hate the way they use the word piracy? Piracy is an act of crime commited at sea, are these people uploading the film from a boat or something?
 

RheynbowDash

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Turtleboy1017 said:
Hmm, I downloaded it so does that mean I'm a felon? Cool I've always wanted to be a badass cyber criminal.

And as long as I exist this movie will have at least one seeder. Off to Piratebay everyone!
hmmmm.. interesting. im gonna call my ninjabay friends and we're commin to get ya.

EDIT:

SmilingKitsune said:
I know it's off-topic but does anyone else hate the way they use the word piracy? Piracy is an act of crime commited at sea, are these people uploading the film from a boat or something?
This made me LOL.
 

Skeleon

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Nov 2, 2007
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Hm, wouldn't want to be in the hunted guy's shoes.

Even though it sounds a little over the top, I sorta understand their reaction. This is worse than if a full version was uploaded. Why? Because people will watch it and probably will be very unhappy with it because of its many missing aspects. They'll tell other people how much the movie sucked (even if that was just because it's an unfinished release), resulting in more losses than if a full movie was uploaded. At least that's my interpretation.

Also, concerning the FBI: Who said the culprit wasn't an alien? The truth is out there...
 

Pimppeter2

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I told Sadam's evil twin it would be risky, told him they'd have the fbi on him, but hes so young and ambitious! It will ruin our plans!
 

Gothproxy

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I cant see why anyone would want to ruin the experience of seeing the finished product. Watching a half-finished, broken film doesnt intice me like going to a theatre, getting my big popcorn and soda and watching a cool movie on a huge HD screen with surround sound that could blow my eardrums out. Meh. Just never got into the whole movie piracy thing I guess. I DO feel sorry for the sap thats gonna get the heat from this though.
 

TsunamiWombat

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Sep 6, 2008
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I'm dissapointed. I was hoping this would be about Wolverine hijacking a ship and terrorizing the open sea's with his scurvy crew.

Or actual wolverines robbing people.
 

DamienHell

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SmilingKitsune said:
I know it's off-topic but does anyone else hate the way they use the word piracy? Piracy is an act of crime commited at sea, are these people uploading the film from a boat or something?
That would make me laugh, catching a pirate who was on a boat.
 

Milkman Dan

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Sep 11, 2008
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Fox quickly had the film removed

They keep saying that in news releases. What do they mean by "removed"? It's obvious to anyone with Google (never mind torrent search engines) that it was not removed. Are they just lying about it to fool people, so that they don't get the idea of looking for it online as well?
 

Booze Zombie

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Dec 8, 2007
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"Hmm, a stolen, incomplete version of the Wolverine film is on the Internet... what should we do?"

"REMOVE IT!"

"Um, how about we pretend we removed it in a public announcement, but leave it on the Internet so people Google it and we increase our income because people hate the stolen version and want to see the real movie in theaters?"

"Excellent."
 

GloatingSwine

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Nov 10, 2007
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In other news, the movie is shit.

Seriously, they broke the one good thing about it, which was that they had a great Deadpool, he's even the main villain at the end, he's played by Nolan North (Drake in Uncharted, a man who can indeed crack wise with wit and timing) and they give him one line in the entire film.

Don't watch it. The more people watch shitty movies like this, the longer it will take before Avi Arad is fired (or shot) and we can have decent Marvel movies again.
 

pantsoffdanceoff

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Jun 14, 2008
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GloatingSwine said:
In other news, the movie is shit.

Seriously, they broke the one good thing about it, which was that they had a great Deadpool, he's even the main villain at the end, he's played by Nolan North (Drake in Uncharted, a man who can indeed crack wise with wit and timing) and they give him one line in the entire film.

Don't watch it. The more people watch shitty movies like this, the longer it will take before Avi Arad is fired (or shot) and we can have decent Marvel movies again.
Gasp are you saying that you watched this pirated movie? That would be illegal... I TOTALLY didn't see it though... really.
 

Disembodied_Dave

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Feb 5, 2009
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I don't really see how this warrents any sort of arrest. It's not like it was the complete movie (which will undoubtable be availible to download illegally once it's out on DVD). It's more like leaked special features or something.
 

GloatingSwine

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pantsoffdanceoff said:
Gasp are you saying that you watched this pirated movie? That would be illegal... I TOTALLY didn't see it though... really.
Technically, watching it isn't illegal, downloading it or distributing it would be ;)

However, I've only paid attention to the bits with Deadpool in, and skipped through the rest, because he's all that matters, and North is a really good Deadpool (he also voiced the animated Deadpool in Hulk vs Wolverine, and is the best thing in it), they've just wasted him and the character on this movie, and no amount of complete CGI will save that.