
Hackers claim to have stolen Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and demand ransom - phr4ts
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15644352/pirates-caribbean-5-hackers-demand-ransom-disney
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bhaak
Disney will certainly be quite happy to have this much free advertising for a
movie that is going to start being shown in cinemas in a few days.

It's hilarious to claim that the leak of Expendables 3 was the reason it
flopped on the big screen. But of course, if I were responsible for the movie,
I would clutch at any straw possible.

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avaer
It's very much heads I win, tails you lose for Disney.

Free advertising (heck I didn't know this was coming out but now I'll probably
see it), _and_ more ammunition to bend the law to prop up their business
model.

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yladiz
I wonder if the pirates think that this will really do anything. The people
that were already going to pirate it, are going to pirate it, but now they can
get a better source earlier. This isn't going to really affect people going to
the movies to see it though; most people who pirate wouldn't have seen it in
theaters anyway, and those that now know you can probably won't.

You can only ransom something if that something has value to the ransomee. I'm
not a Disney exec, but I don't really think threatening to leak the movie has
much value.

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dragonwriter
> I'm not a Disney exec, but I don't really think threatening to leak the
> movie has much value.

Worst case is that the leak enables negative word of mouth before the films
even hit a screen, but execs would only worry about that if they already were
insecure about the film. Don't know if that's the case for PotC 5.

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etatoby
I don't buy it.

Watching a big-budget movie in a theater and watching a pirated version are
two activities so dissimilar as not to affect each other at all.

If we were talking about Netflix shows, or DVD releases, then maybe piracy
would impact the sales, but a big Disney movie? Nah.

These pirates are either stupid, or non-existent and created by Disney itself.

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ryanlol
>Watching a big-budget movie in a theater and watching a pirated version are
two activities so dissimilar as not to affect each other at all.

Dunno, I'd certainly go to the cinema much less if I could just download
bluray remuxes on opening nights.

I'd say the biggest difference between the two is the fact that one is
available for months before the other.

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moomin
If they were threatening to force us to watch it, I'd say pay the ransom post-
haste.

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moneytide1
The irony of pirates/thieves leveraging the populations interest in
pirates/thieves in order to siphon money out of the most dangerous mental
pirate of them all - the behemoth that programs (and compromises) the minds of
children to dream of being a prince or princess, to elevate the self above
others.

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ryanhunt
I bet the author, Jacob Kastrenakes, was well chuffed when he got to write a
headline like that.

