FBI Traces Hateful Eight Leak to Hollywood Exec’s Screener — Screeners: A Blessing and a Curse

Photo: The Weinstein Company

As someone who receives screeners and is afraid of the law, I personally live in fear that someone will snatch a highly coveted movie from the pile of screeners the package-delivery people throw against my door, upload it, and then send me to jail for their crime. Clearly, this fear/humblebrag isn’t completely unfounded, as it looks like the DVD screener of The Hateful Eight sent to Alcon Entertainment co-CEO Andrew Kosove was behind a massive leak of the film earlier this week. “I’ve never seen this DVD,” Kosove told The Hollywood Reporter. “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.” Kosove’s assistant allegedly signed for the screener — which was one of many sent out for awards consideration — before the film was uploaded by movie pirates Hive-CM8. The FBI traced Hateful Eight back to Kosove using a digital watermark on the screener. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he didn’t even get to see the movie! Oh well, plenty of time to watch all the movies in the world when he and I are sharing a prison cell, framed for screener theft.

Hateful Eight Leak Linked to Hollywood Executive