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Movie Curiosities Lurking on BitTorrent Networks

Posted: 10 Aug 2014 04:02 AM PDT

One of the most fascinating things about early “shared folder” P2P networks and protocols such as FastTrack (Kazaa) and Gnutella (LimeWire) was the amount of unusual content that turned up online.

In the end, however, this ungoverned and unmoderated publication of content became the undoing of these and similar networks, with malware, viruses and badly (even maliciously) labeled files taking over.

With the advent of BitTorrent with its reliance on managed indexes, publication of content became significantly less accessible. That cut down hugely on junk but also much of the desirable oddball content too. However, torrents ate big files for breakfast and heralded something new and exciting – leaks of movie content never intended for public consumption plus exclusive fan-modified versions.

Also noteworthy with BitTorrent is longevity of content availability. With both in mind we took a browse around to see what unusual movie content is still being seeded today.

Fight Club – Workprint – 1998/1999

According to the iMDb, Fight Club is one of the world’s most-loved movies with countless millions having seen it to date. However, lurking away on file-sharing networks is a special version of the movie sporting hundreds of changes from the final version including 13 reported cuts for violence.

Showing that something as important as the intro isn’t always set in stone, this video claims to depict an earlier intro to the movie accompanied by “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters instead of “Stealing Fat” from the Dust Brothers.

Curiosity value: At least 127 documented differences compared with the original.

Halloween – Workprint – 2007

As the world waited for the return of Michael Myers in the 2007 remake of Halloween, scene release group mVs (Maven Supplier) had a surprise in store. On August 27, 2007, three days before its official release, mVs released an unfinished version of the movie online.

Curiosity value: Missing final edits, some scenes added, and general polish. Full extensive details are available here.

Alien “Virtual Workprint” – 1979

From release notes: A fan-edit of the film ALIEN which interpolates all existing deleted scenes and a variety of unseen footage and unused score cues to create a version that runs considerably longer than both the 1979 theatrical release and the 2003 director’s cut.

Curiosity value: Runtime of 139 mins (117 mins original, 116 mins director’s cut)

Apocalypse Now – Workprint – 1979

According to the information posted along with the release, this is the best workprint copy of the movie outside “Mr Coppola’s archives” although as the screenshots show, quality is stuck in the VHS era.

“I was given this on VHS many years ago. It was from a higher up source on the food chain and quite possibly one or two generations down from the source that leaked it to begin with,” a note with the release reads.

“The workprint ended right during the cow slicing. I then tacked on the finished
film ended but before the credits I also added the Kurtz compound destruction.
Now you have a super edition of the film running 30 mins short of 6 hours!!

Curiosity value: Unfinished, yet still 5.5 hours long. (original 153 mins)

The Mask – Workprint – 1994

This Jim Carey classic was nominated for a special effects Oscar in 1995, but people who stumbled across an unfinished version of the movie were seriously but interestingly short-changed in that department. This workprint copy is missing many special effects and in some of the more dramatic morphing scenes everything is replaced by hand drawn story boards.

Curiosity value: A full 20 mins longer than the DVD with unfinished scenes, scenes not present in the final version, additional dialogue and Jim Carrey acting scenes before CGI is added in.

Dune The Reconstructed Workprint Edition – 1984

From release notes: This edit attempts to reconstruct David Lynch’s workprint better than the official Extended Edition. It removes most (if not all) of the offensive elements that led Lynch to remove his name from the Extended Edition.

Erroneous FX shots are eliminated, and as much of the Theatrical Edition as possible is used for the sake of better sound and score. It also restores most of the
deleted scenes that were not present in the Extended Edition but finally showed
up as a supplement on the DVD.

Curiosity value: 41 mins longer than the official 137 min runtime.

The Nightmare Before Christmas Workprint – 1993

From release notes: The film was half-complete at this point. You’ll see a lot of finished scenes, including a few that don’t appear in the final movie, but you’ll also see scenes which are only storyboard drawings.

There is a lot of temporary audio and music. Oogie Boogie’s scenes, for example, aren’t ready yet – they’re storyboards, with temporary audio on his song, which is a longer version probably sung by Danny Elfman. “Making Christmas” is also just storyboards with an extra verse.

The final confrontation between Jack and Oogie (and pretty much the entire ending) is also just storyboards, and a bit vague compared to the final film.

Curiosity value: Seriously unfinished

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) – 4.5 Hour Workprint

From release notes: This workprint of the film contains about 3 hours of footage not included in the commercial release. The picture quality is pretty bad; it’s dark and muddled, but you can see everything pretty okay.

The sound is really great, however. The audio also falls out of sync at certain points because it is an extremely rough cut of the flick and that stuff wasn’t finalized yet.

Curiosity value: Three hours of extra footage.

If you’ve found any obscure video content hiding away online, please feel free to detail your discovery in the comments section below. Please do not link to any copyrighted material or torrents since those posts will be removed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Lionsgate Can Seize Assets of File-Sharing Sites, Court Rules

Posted: 09 Aug 2014 11:26 AM PDT

Two weeks ago a high quality leak of the upcoming Expendables 3 film appeared online.

Fearing a massive loss in revenue, movie studio Lionsgate issued thousands of takedown requests to limit the film’s availability. While most sites swiftly removed links to the pre-release leak, according to the studio some did not respond at all.

Late last week Lionsgate sued the operators of six file-sharing sites that allegedly failed to remove the infringing files – Limetorrents.com, Billionuploads.com, Hulkfile.eu, Played.to, Swankshare.com and Dotsemper.com.

Lionsgate accused the sites of several copyright infringement offenses and asked for a permanent injunction to stop further distribution of the film, as well as seizure of the sites’ bank accounts and other assets.

Yesterday the case appeared before Judge Margaret Morrow at the California federal court. None of the file-sharing sites had responded to the allegations and the judge granted Lionsgate’s request for a broad preliminary injunction.

The preliminary injunction prevents the sites from hosting and linking to copies of the movie. The same applies to all companies that provide services to or in connection with the sites, which means that the sites are at risk of losing their domain names.

In addition, the court also ordered that all bank accounts and other financial assets of the sites can be frozen.

“All banks, savings and loan associations, payment processors or other financial institutions, payment providers, third-party processors and advertising service providers of Defendants or any of them must, upon receiving notice of this Order, immediately locate all accounts connected to Defendants,” the injunction states.

The seized funds may be needed to compensate Lionsgate for the losses it suffered as a result of the leak, the judge argues.

“Such an asset freeze is appropriate in this case to preserve Lions Gate's right to such recovery against Defendants, who are trafficking in the Stolen Film and may secret assets to insulate them from judgment,”Judge Morrow notes.

This is not the first ruling in favor of the movie studio. Earlier this week Lionsgate also obtained permission to subpoena various third-party web services including Google, Cloudflare and GoDaddy to obtain personal details on several of the defendants.

With the preliminary injunction, Lionsgate now has the potential to severely cripple the accused file-sharing sites. Whether it will be enough to stop the distribution of the leaked film has yet to be seen.

Thus far all six sites remain operational and links to the Expendables 3 leak are still widely available.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.