Spectre movie piracy: Release group Hive-CM8 threatens to leak 40 top Hollywood screeners

Piracy group Hive-CM8 has threatened to leak copies of 40 top Hollywood movies over the next few weeks. The piracy group has so far released 11 'screeners' (advance versions sent to critics and others in the industry) with the James Bond movie Spectre among the latest.

Other leaked screeners include The Hateful Eight, Legend, In The Heart of The Sea, Joy, Steve Jobs, Spotlight, Creed, Concussion, The Danish Girl, and Bridge of Spies. The DVD screener of Spectre has been uploaded to various torrent sites. The torrent first appeared on private sites before being leaked to public sites including Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents. According to Torrent Freak, more than 10,000 people have already shared the leaked screener copy and the downloads could soon hit a million.

Besides Spectre, a significant leak that may have ruined Hollywood's Christmas is Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. The leak of the movie has been linked to a top Hollywood film executive and is being investigated by the FBI.

"I've never seen this DVD. It's never touched my hands. We're going to do more than cooperate with the FBI. We're going to conduct our own investigation to find out what happened," Andrew Kosove, co-CEO of production-finance company, Alcon Entertainment, told The Hollywood Reporter. A screener copy of The Hateful Eight was sent to Kosove for the year-end awards.

Other movies threatened by Hive-CM8 include 45 Years, Son of Saul, Love the Coopers, Krampus, The Night Before, Point Break, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, Burnt, Black Mass, Trumbo, The Last Witch Hunter, Victor Frankenstein, The Big Short, Sisters, Secret in Their Eyes and Daddy's Home.

Hive-CM8, as per Torrent Freak sources, is a group consisting of less than a handful of members.