The Paramount Pictures production was not scheduled to come out before October, but that changed when copies of the film began spreading online.
The trouble started on April 12 when X user @ImStillDissin posted two clips from the film, misleadingly claiming that someone at Nickelodeon had “accidentally emailed me the entire Avatar Aang movie.” Both clips were taken down via DMCA notices shortly after.
The initial leaker later told the Hollywood Reporter that he actually received the film through a contact from his “hacker days.” He didn’t realize what it was until he looked it up, and decided to post the snippets online.
The clips carried a #PeggleCrew watermark, a nod to the hacking group that is allegedly behind the breach, although this remains unconfirmed.
Not long after the clips were removed, a second X user posted the full film, racking up over a million views before that too was removed. Paramount, meanwhile, remained quiet and did not issue a public statement on the leak.
Behind the scenes, however, the movie studio and its anti-piracy partners have been quite busy. Initially, they mostly dealt with copies of the film being reposted on X by different users, but their challenge was spreading elsewhere too.
DMCA Notice Whack-a-Mole
After the leak was public, the film started to spread through other platforms too. Records in the Lumen Database show that Paramount and its enforcement teams at MarkScan Digital, Marketly LLC, and Vobile Inc. all sprung into action, flagging various leaked copies.
This includes DMCA takedown requests directly targeting leaks on third-party services such as Google Drive and the video service Vimeo, both of which were swiftly taken down.
However, some takedown requests include more indirect links too. For example, a DMCA notice sent on behalf of Paramount by MarkScan on April 13, targets a 4chan discussion thread, which typically only remains online briefly. This notice also listed a file that was posted on Rootz.
While Paramount clearly tried hard to contain the leak, it appeared that the problem only became harder to enforce.
The Piracy Ecosystem Takes Over
Unlike most movie leaks, the Avatar: Aang leak did not originate from a scene or P2P group. However, it found its way into the traditional piracy ecosystem within hours, where it continues to thrive today.
Multiple copies were uploaded to torrent sites and are widely shared, making it the second most pirated movie of the past week. This includes a copy that was uploaded to The Pirate Bay by “TheRedPill,” who referenced the ongoing whack-a-mole at other platforms in the upload description.
“Found this copy on twitter of all places via a wetranfer link. Supposedly this is a webrip that was sent to someone who then leaked it online. it has been passed around all day with links going up and down,” the uploader wrote.
This wasn’t the only copy of the leak that surfaced on torrent sites, as many others appeared around the same time. Meanwhile, pirate streaming sites began indexing the leak as well, further expanding its audience by millions of people.
As shown above, torrent site 1337x currently hosts a wide variety of leaked copies. These all originate from the same source but are reported in different qualities.
Little Recourse Beyond Google
Dozens of notices posted in the Lumen database show that Paramount and its enforcement partners are also targeting these pirate sites. However, since most of these sites don’t respond to takedown notices, these sites present a persistent problem.
For these pirate sites, Paramount typically asks Google to delist the URLs from search results, which reduces discoverability but does not take the infringing content offline.
The notice below, for example, was sent to Google yesterday and targets various torrent and streaming sites. However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Also, it’s worth stressing that the notices in the Lumen Database reported here are only the fraction of Paramount’s takedown efforts that’s public. Most of their efforts, including any notices sent directly to X or other platforms that do not report to Lumen, remain unknown.
In addition to taking down content, Paramount will also be interested in finding the source of the leak. According to Variety, unnamed sources said that the matter is under investigation, but the leak reportedly did not originate from within the studio.
For now, Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender remains on course for its October 9 premiere on Paramount+. By then, most of its target audience has already had the opportunity to watch an early, perhaps unfinished, version of the film for free.
