The issue of leaked films and scripts has become more and more prevalent in recent years. Sometimes they are caused by hackers. On other occasions, the leaks come as a result of employees releasing files for various reasons. We're going to look at three famous film production leaks, discussing what happened and how the company in question dealt with it. We're also going to see what can be done to avoid leaks happening in the first place.
The Sony Pictures Hack The Leak In 2014 a hacker group calling itself the Guardians of Peace (GOP) hacked into one of the world's largest film companies, Sony Pictures, and stole a trove of confidential data. Although no films or scripts were leaked, there were numerous emails which were released to the public. And the information contained in these was of a confidential and often highly personal nature.
The Response In the first quarter of 2015 Sony Pictures set aside $15 million to deal with the damage caused by the hack. In addition to this, Sony bolstered their cyber security infrastructure.
The South Park Episode Leak The Leak Also in 2014, an original and uncensored episode of the South Park TV series was stolen from the South Park Studios servers and posted online. This was an episode which had run in a heavily censored form in 2010 and, due to its potentially inflammatory nature, was never intended for viewing by the public.
The Response There was little that Comedy Central, the owners of the material, could do to respond to the leak, but it is highly likely that security has been tightened on their servers.
The Scream 2 Script Leak The Leak This is one of the original film leaks via the internet and it occurred as long ago as 1997, when the identity of the killer in Scream 2 was revealed before the film's general release.
The Response Fortunately for the film production company, they were able to rewrite the script with a different ending. So, the identity of the killer became a secret once again.
Preventing Leaks Hackers are a rising problem, but fortunately
cyber security technology exists to meet this threat. With the right defensive systems in place, it is possible for film production companies to protect their assets.
Leaks from internal sources are more difficult to guard against, but these too can be reduced if companies follow strict information security protocols.
In these ways leaks can prevented and the films and TV shows that we're looking forward to won't be ruined by malicious parties