14 DAY TRIAL // “Expendables 3” made its way online last week, much to the exasperation of Hollywood studios, especially since this happened weeks before the movie’s premiere in cinemas. However, it seems that pirates were rather doubtful about whether or not to share the movie and sit on the copy for about nine days.
TorrentFreak reports that it is still uncertain who leaked the file. While some believed it to be Drarbg, it seems that there are some copies that were uploaded some 20 minutes before. Perhaps there were other copies out there available for people to download, but copyright complaints took them down, which means we’ll likely never know who shared the movie first.
Either way, the important thing is that a near-DVD-quality copy was uploaded to the Internet a good two weeks before the official release of the movie. There are now dozens of alternatives online on countless websites, and it seems that there have been over half a million downloads thus far, although it is quite likely that numbers are even higher.
The site points to a posting on 4chan indicating that the copy may have been kept under wraps for nine days.
An anonymous user asked around for directions to releasing a highly anticipated movie. “There is a recent film in my possession that I will not name (because of how sensitive it is to do so) in DVD format. Don’t even ask. Seriously. Just don’t,” he urged. “Say I wanted to leak it online without getting caught. Who would be the right people to get in contact with to help me leak it,” Anonymous asks.
The post may refer to any movie out there since there are no names, but the chances are pretty low that the poster was talking about any other production. After all, there is no other big movie to have hit the Internet in recent weeks to make such waves. If it were a film that was already out, it wouldn’t be so unexpected to release it online.
4chan user “Anonymous” returned later saying he’d been in contact with a release group that worked with private trackers who asked for evidence, which he provided.
If this is indeed the owner of the original file that ended up online, then the movie has been in the hands of pirates since July 15, which is one whole month ahead of the premiere date. Sources told TorrentFreak that everyone was scared to leak the document.