Pirates apologize for leaking Quentin Tarantino's new movie
They're sorry for the damage done by swiping 'The Hateful Eight.' Really. Honest.
Movie pirates aren't usually remorseful about their bootlegging, but one group appears bent on some contrition. The Hive-CM8 team has apologized to Quentin Tarantino for posting The Hateful Eight before it had even surfaced in theaters, claiming that it feels "sorry" for the trouble it created by spoiling the release. Supposedly, they just wanted to share the movie with people who are "not rich enough" to see the Western in theaters, and held the release back for a week to give the official release a "fighting chance." Aw, how kind!
The team also maintains that it got the release (an awards screener intended for the producer of the Point Break remake) "from a guy on the street," not through a hack, and that you should still pay for the movie to support its creators. In fact, Hive-CM8 makes the common argument that the piracy could actually help ticket sales, since it'd generate buzz that leads friends and family to watch.
Whether or not the group is sincere in its apology is another story. After all, pirate outfits practically live for the bragging rights that come with posting their wares early -- that's why they attach their group name to a release in the first place. And if they'd really been concerned about protecting opening day ticket revenue, they wouldn't have released the movie in advance at all. There's also the question of why the group is apologizing for the early release of The Hateful Eight, but not the numerous other titles it released afterward. The mea culpa may have a degree of truth to it, but it comes across more as a small twinge of guilt rather than a profound change of heart.
[Image credit: Joel Ryan/Invision/AP]
