Disney Chief Bob Iger Says Hackers Claim To Have Stolen Upcoming Movie (hollywoodreporter.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Hollywood Reporter: Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed Monday that hackers claiming to have access to a Disney movie threatened to release it unless the studio paid a ransom. Iger didn't disclose the name of the film, but said Disney is refusing to pay. The studio is working with federal investigators. Iger's comments came during a town hall meeting with ABC employees in New York City, according to multiple sources. The Disney chief said the hackers demanded that a huge sum be paid in Bitcoin. They said they would release five minutes of the film at first, and then in 20-minute chunks until their financial demands are met. While movie piracy has long been a scourge, ransoms appear to be a new twist. UPDATE: According to Deadline, the movie in question appears to be the upcoming film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Disney appears to be working with the FBI and will not pay the ransom.

Comments

that title

[0111 1110]

Could the title be interpreted as a threat to the hackers? I wonder if it was recently changed.

Re:that title

[ShanghaiBill]

Or maybe this is all a false flag operation.
Cui bono?
Disney is getting free publicity for the movie
A 5 or maybe a 20 minute segment will actually increase demand for the theater release.
My theory is that Disney made it all up and there was no real threat.

Confirmation will be when he goes for the patriotism angle by claiming the hackers are working for ISIS.
So if you view the pirated version of the pirate movie, you are supporting terrorism.
You heard it here first.

Piracy?

[halltk1983]

Too bad they already misappropriated the term piracy for online file sharing. This seems more fitting of the name. Ironic, given the content of the theft.

Re:Piracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Meaning "one who takes another's work without permission" first recorded 1701....sense of "unlicensed radio broadcaster" is from 1913.'

So it's meant copyright violation for 300+ years, but don't let the truth get in the way of a good pedantic argument over a commonly-understood word.

Re:Piracy?

[king neckbeard]

Yes, because the Stationer's Company in 1701 was full of upstanding, principled and honest individuals who wouldn't dare appropriate a scary word for their own purposes. It's not as if their monopoly existed explicitly for the purposes of censorship and spreading propaganda. Oh wait, yes it did, and since it predates the 1710 Statute of Anne, which at least nominally claimed to be for "the advancement of learning," there's not even the slightest hint that they were above propaganda.

Parent's point isn't wrong just because it was misappropriated 300 years ago instead of more recently.

Re:Piracy?

[CaseCrash]

Come on, give them some credit for standing up to blackmailers. Plus no-one who is going to see this in the theater is going to not do so now that they can see the movie 20 minutes at a time on their laptop.

Re:Piracy?

[91degrees]

But who cares? Pirates in the media are seen as heroic romantic figures. Jack Sparrow is very much a protagonist. Pirates of Penzance has a band of gentlemanly pirates. Even the villains like Captain Hook are presented as charismatic leaders.

And even if they weren't, nobody associates media pirates with historical pirates. The connection makes a good joke but that's about it.

Re:Piracy?

[king neckbeard]

The exact work? Probably not. In addition to lowering the total number of works published, copyright also tended to shift authorship from informative to fictional, since only the specific words are published, and thus rephrasing a scientific text allows a relatively trivial workaround.

So, we might have fewer blockbuster films (especially since we'd have competitive markets instead of oligopolies), but we'd probably be about 50 years ahead technologically by now, and more focused on learning. Of course, greater tech could mean greater standard of living, more education, and cheaper filmmaking, so perhaps we'd have even more well-produced films.

We'll see if piracy affects sales

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can pirate a big name franchise before it hits theaters, but we still see huge ticket sales, then we can finally agree that piracy has no real impact on film profits.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales..

[Anonymous Coward]

AKA... Pirates of the Caribbean: Lets Kick A Dead Horse One More Time.

File that under... what?

[DontBeAMoran]

The movie in question appears to be the upcoming film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Disney appears to be working with the FBI and will not pay the ransom.

So it's a movie about pirates that's been "pirated" and a ransom has been asked but won't be paid because hopefully the "heroes" will save the day. I don't know if I should file that under irony, inception, recursive and/or funny.

They should threaten to send it to movie critics

[elrous0]

"Give us the moneys or we show the movie critics how awful it is!" warned the pirates.

In other news, this is the lamest publicity stunt ever.

Coming to

[fred911]

Your favorite thepiratebay domain.

Awwww

[Opportunist]

Did shipping jobs overseas backfire?

Here's the tiniest violin, made in the USA, playing just for you.

ok so...

[roc97007]

Disney has done some bad things recently (cough-H1B-cough) but I'm kinda glad they refused to pay. And I have a stronger urge to see this film in the theater, regardless of whether the criminals release it or not.

Re:so, quit outsourcing, esp. your security.

[gweihir]

Indeed. Turns out that "saving" money on IT security can become pretty expensive.

Re: so, quit outsourcing, esp. your security.

[Kabukiwookie]

If you think hiring professionals is expensive, wait until you've hired some amateurs.

Come on, folks

[PPH]

Lets all chip in to keep this Disney movie from being released.

I'm afraid the studio is going to ask quite a bit more than the hackers to keep it off the screens.

I don't care about Disney anymore (H-1B)

[no1nose]

They hire Indian immigrants on the H-1B Visa program and lay-off hard-working American Engineers. Who really cares is a lame Disney movie got stolen. Good riddance.

Exactly: useless threats

[DrYak]

Plus no-one who is going to see this in the theater is going to not do so now that they can see the movie 20 minutes at a time on their laptop.

And also, people who are interested in getting pirated copies of the movies will get one at the thousands other leaks/bootleg/screen cap/DVD-screener/Web-DL/whatever that will pop up in the following months.
Even if Disney *did* decide to pay, and the blackmailer were "honest" and destroyed their copy, that wouldn't stop the countless others.
It's just basically about one more extra download link at your usual download/dtreaming spot.
It's just not worth for Disney to pay.