Sony Pictures Entertainment has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into the illegal upload of several of its movies after they were stolen by hackers.
The release of the pirated movies comes after Sonys computer network was compromised last Monday and went down, but not before displaying a red skull and the phrase “Hacked By #GOP”. It is still unknown whether the two are related, however, the FBI is investigating the illegal distribution, through piracy web sites, of the not-yet-launched Christmas movie “Annie”, Brad Pitts “Fury” and “Mr. Turner”.
“There will be an impact on Sony Picture’s box office revenue for this year due to hacking and the leaks,” said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute said. “It will be a one-time impact and won’t drag on too long.”
Sony Pictures has been one of the companys most reliable sources of profit, however, the attack may push viewers away from Sonys entertainment unit and therefore cause losses.
According to a research by Intels security-software unit McAfee and the Center for Strategic and International Studies published in June, leaks caused by hacker attacks hurt the global economy by $575 billion every year, despite Hollywoods action to minimize financial losses by narrowing the time between cinema and home entertainment release dates.
Guardians of Peace was the group responsible for last weeks attack over Sonys computer network. The hackers accessed confidential emails and other sensitive data and threatened to release it, while also uploading images of Amy Pascal and Michael Lynton, high ranked executives at Sonys entertainment division, and posting threatening messages.
Sony Pictures declined to comment.
The incident has also been linked to the upcoming release of “The Interview”, due to Christmas day. The comedy is about a television host who gets an interview with Kim Jong Un and is later recruited by the CIA to assassinate the North Korean leader. Sony may be investigating whether the hackers were hired by North Korea.
In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Ja Song Nam, North Korea’s UN ambassador wrote “production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state, should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war”.
Sony Corp gained 4% on Friday in Tokyo and an additional 1.54% on Monday to close at ¥2 640, marking a one-year increase of 41.40%. The company is valued at 2.99 trillion. According to the Financial Times, the 17 analysts offering 12-month price targets for Sony Crop have a median target of ¥2 850, with a high estimate of ¥3 700 and a low estimate of ¥1 400. The median estimate represents a 7.95% increase from the last price of ¥2 640.
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