How do movies leak out before they go to theaters?

I was over at my friends house and we were going to watch a movie and she said, let's choose one that my roommate downloaded, cause he has a lot. And I noticed that Mulan (2020), was on his download list, with the poster artwork and all, and the year saying 2020.

This movie isn't even in theaters yet, and he managed to download it. That got me thinking, jeez some movie companies really do not do a good job of keeping their movies from getting out before release if you can just illegally download new movies like that. Unless it's rare?

Welcome to the digital age.


All movies today are digital.
There's no film any more.


Then add to that the sheer number of people who have access to the movie's Master-Copy.
You're talking hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have access to the full version of the movie.
If anything, there's even no such thing as a "Master-Copy" any more either given that a movie is passed around between offices so it can be edited and chopped up by numerous producers and writers.



Then, add to that as well, all computers also have internet access, meaning they can be hacked.




One story I remember was on LOTR.
They edited together a finalised cut of the movie, saved it to a hard drive, and then they downloaded a copy of the entire Return Of The King movie onto a separate hard-drive... and got one of the producers to put that hard drive into his pocket and walk 20 minutes across town to another studio so he could show the cut to Peter Jackson.
He got followed though by some wannabe gangsters.
They were going to mug him... so he ran, literally for his life, and luckily made it to safety.



Given that a copy of the entire movie was placed into the hands of a single person, and forgetting the fact he was almost mugged... what would stop him meeting someone on his journey, taking a handful of cash and letting them download a copy from the portable hard drive onto their own laptop?


Sooooo many factors these days are involved, and let's face it, digital just isn't secure when you take into account that in the old days, a movie would have been filmed and that was it. One copy. A Master-Copy.

One copy, that would then need duplicating onto other rolls of film so cinemas could show it.
A digital Master-Copy is accessible via internet, copy-able within seconds between hard-drives... and thousands of people with access to the Master-Copy too. Maybe even millions if it's kept on a laptop that's currently attached to the internet.

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Gonna make an addition that that ^^


I used to work in printing and duplication. Movies, music, games etc.
I alone am responsible for almost every cassette tape made in the UK between 1998 and 2000. I made about a billion music cassette tapes in those 2 years alone. Anything from Boyzone, Jamiroquai, to Vengaboys and all of the Cream Ibiza albums.
Desirae.
Mr Oizo.
Now 40 to like Now 48 or thereabouts.

You name it, any and all cassette tape made between 1998 and 2000, I made it on my duplication and printing machine



And... I couldn't have done it without a master-copy, and a specific machine used to make the copies.



In the old days... you had a master-copy, a film, which would need a very specific piece of equipment to duplicate the master-copy.
Anyone remember years ago, thinking that just sticking 2 VHS players together and you could make a copy of a movie you'd hired from Blockbuster?


Always turned out fuzzy and crap huh?
You needed the right equipment.


The master-copies of the cassettes I made, were transported under guard as well, and were watched by security personnel at all times, and the equipment too was bolted into the ground.
Not even joking.


Digital these days though... all you need is a hard drive that can read a memory card or memory stick.
Plug it in... done.

Absolute bollocks!
I distinctly remember making my own mix-tape for Rebecca O'Mahoney during this time period

Weirdly, if you're in the UK, and it was made on a new-at-the-time blank tape, I can tell you the name of the guy who made that tape as well

Aha, but I'm not
Mine was made by some bloke called Maxwell. No idea why but I've always assumed his first name was Andrew
Oooooh, hang on a minute .... your name isn't Maxwell is it???? I might have to stand corrected

Pretty sure that dude's surname was House.

Andrew House????????

Advanced digital copies of movies are given out to reviewers/bloggers and more prestigious films are given to Academy Awards members for watching & voting purposes. Some of those advanced copies get uploaded.

Yeah, it exists digitally before it's put on film proper (if the theater in question is even using old-school film reels to begin with), which means it's floating around there already, so there's a thousand opportunities for it to leak. A better question is why it doesn't leak more.

That said, just because he's downloading something with that label doesn't mean it's correct. There's a lot of mislabeled stuff.

Oh okay, well what if they made the master copy, reels of film rather than a digital harddrive? Would that make it less easy for criminals to pirate if it was on film still?

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Well a film reel weighs more than a hubcap though.

Well I suppose if they really wanted to get crafty, they could do what you see in the movies, and have it so that if the reel is stolen, just booby trap it so that copy of the movie that the producers are transporting can be destroyed or tainted and not usable after.

nice question, I was thinking the same how is this possible.

so sad that some people can't afford to watch movies legally....

Everyone else I am angry at..........

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