"The Expendables 3" will finally open this Friday, August 15. However, 2.2 million people have already watched it, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Now how did that happen?
"Just over two weeks ago, a complete and nearly pristine copy of 'The Expendables 3,' which features more than a dozen stars including Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford, leaked online," the publication revealed. "It is Hollywood's highest profile piracy leak since 2009, when an incomplete version of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' found its way online before the superhero movie came out."
According to a Hollywood movie piracy expert, this kind of leak is "very rare" as studios have set in place "a lot of protections in the entire production process."
In this case, WSJ analyzed, "a high-quality, pre-release leak like 'The Expendables 3' typically could come only from someone at Lionsgate or one of its postproduction vendors."
It can be safe to say that whoever the culprit is, he or she will definitely lose business with the studio.
Last week, it was learned that Lionsgate was given a temporary restraining order in relation to the illegal sharing of the action flick.
"U.S. District Judge Margaret Morrow specified six domain names in her order, barring them from hosting, linking to, streaming or making any other use of the film," Variety reported. "She also barred any third party from 'taking any action that induces, causes or materially contributes to' the infringement of Lionsgate's copyright, including hosting, linking or providing access to such things as torrent files and trackers. She also ordered banks, payment processors and advertisers to shut down accounts connected to the sites."
Previously, the studio had sued about "10 anonymous individuals" allegedly involved in illegaly leaking a "high-quality copy" of the film.
"The studio is seeking unspecified monetary damages for contributory copyright infringement. The sites named were limetorrents.com, billionuploads.com, hulkfile.eu, played.to, swankshare.com and dotsemper.com," the news source continued.
Lionsgate only learned of the leak July 24. From that time until now, tracking firm, Excipio, had estimated that more than 2 million downloads of "The Expendables 3" have been made around the globe.
An individual, who was able to illegally download the Sylvester Stallone-starrer, told WSJ that he would rather "watch it again on Netflix or TV if I had nothing else to do" than go to the theaters once the film opens on Friday.
What about you? Would you do the same thing as this person or go out and watch "Expendables 3" on the big screen?
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