Hollywood is hacked. Five upcoming movies produced by Sony Pictures are now scrambling to protect it’s copyright laws and file-sharing hubs around the world. And who is to blame?
Movie ‘Fury’ and the remake of ‘Annie’ are being hit the hardest. Annie has been leaked and pirated three weeks before it’s much anticipated debut. It’s been downloaded over 205,000 times. Fury has been illegally downloaded over 1.2 million times in the last several days. Fury is already one of the most pirated movies of all-time; this is before it’s even released. The hack itself happened on November 24, 2014. During one hack of a Sony corporate system, a skeleton appeared on their computers saying, “Hacked by #GOP”. The group call themselves ‘Guardians of Peace’. Not only are they releasing whole movies before their theater due date, these ‘Guardians of Peace’ are threatening to release many top secrets of Sony. But there’s another, and even more sinister dynamic to this dilemma.
There’s a Sony movie called ‘The Interview’ that is scheduled to be released Christmas Day. The Interview is a blatant, unflattering spoof of the communist regime of North Korea and it’s dictator, Kim Jong-Un. It stars James Franco and Seth Rogen, and they’re journalists/talk show host scouted by the FBI to kill Kim Jong-Un. This spoof makes the N. Korean dictator very unhappy, so unhappy that he’s threatened severe consequences if The Interview isn’t pulled. How coincidental Sony gets hacked right when The Interview and several other Christmas season movies (or should I say Oscar season) are being promoted and released. Look at the names chosen: GOP, Guardians of Peace. That doesn’t sound like N. Korea. That’s the point. The hackers don’t want to look too obvious. That’s why they didn’t hack The Interview. First off, that would be too obvious. Second off, that would give more people exposure to this movie, and Jong-Un doesn’t want that. So why not go after other Sony movies? Is North Korea behind this hacking?