X-Men Leak Downloaded Over a Million Times

Ernesto — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:16:46 +0000

Less than a week after 20th Century Fox’s ‘upcoming’ blockbuster first appeared online, and three long weeks before the official premiere in the movie theaters, over a million people have already downloaded X-Men Origins: Wolverine via BitTorrent.

At the time of writing the film is also topping The Pirate Bay’s Top 100 most popular torrents and is listed among the most popular search terms on other torrent sites.

In an attempt to keep the damage to a minimum, Fox has been sending out takedown notices to various torrent sites. Most site operators are kind enough to take down the links, but new ones are already uploaded before the requests are processed.

Interestingly, most people think that the leak will actually do the movie good, as a poll among our readers indicates that 40% would be more excited to see it in the movie theater or on DVD, even if they had downloaded it. Only 6% of the respondents believe that the leak will be detrimental to the film’s success.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

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Week ending April 05, 2009
Ranking	(last week)	Movie	Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(…)	X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Workprint)	… / trailer
2	(…)	The Spirit	5.1 / trailer
3	(…)	The International (R5)	6.9 / trailer
4	(1)	Yes Man	7.2 / trailer
5	(3)	Inkheart	6.4 / trailer
6	(4)	Marley and Me	7.2 / trailer
7	(2)	Bedtime Stories	6.2 / trailer
8	(…)	Notorious	5.8 / trailer
9	(5)	Twilight	6.1 / trailer
10	(…)	Killshot	6.9 / trailer

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Poll: Will the X-Men Leak Hurt the Movie’s Success?

Ernesto — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:42:32 +0000

The various leaked X-Men copies that found their way onto various file-sharing networks are not quite finished. All the available ‘workprint’ versions of the film are missing special effects, but that didn’t stop most people from taking a sneak peak at this upcoming blockbuster release. The film is due for an official release on May 1, but at least 900,000 BitTorrent users already know how it’s going to end.

20th Century Fox wasn’t happy with this global sneak preview and asked the FBI and MPAA to investigate the case. On Friday it was rumored that an FBI investigation led to a raid on a Dallas data center, but this turned out not to be true. The leak has already cost one Fox news reporter his job. He posted a review of the downloaded movie online and although he loved it, Fox didn’t and he was fired.

What we want to find out with this week’s regular Sunday poll is whether you feel the leak will end up hurting the success of the movie in the long run – or not. It will, if those who have downloaded the film don’t end up seeing it in the movie theater or on DVD, having originally planned to do so. The flip side is that the leak and the associated widespread press coverage could be serving as a useful promotional tool. Those who’ve seen it might become even more curious about the final product, recommended it to others or even take a few friends along to the theater with them.

We’d like to know what you think. How would you respond, IF you had downloaded a copy?

{democracy:6}

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

TorrentFreak » x-men

X-Men Leak Downloaded Over a Million Times

Poll: Will the X-Men Leak Hurt the Movie’s Success?