The latest on the leaked digital online version of Wolverine, from The Wrap, is that it’s a month-old work print. The FBI is involved, along with the Motion Picture Association of America. And of course the studio itself has several of its own investigators working the beat, too — unsavory arm-twisting types, if they’re smart. All are hunkered down, chasing what is being called “at least a half dozen leads.” So they’ll collar someone, eventually. And the excuse will be how the movie was initially only copied for friends, and not meant to be shared, blah blah blah. If the person is in a position to cough up major money (not likely), they’ll be sued for that; otherwise, I like to imagine it’ll be like The Net, with Rupert Murdoch‘s tech Gestapo destroying the offending party’s online profiles, wiping out bank accounts and changing any and all annotations regarding their drug allergies. And yet…

There’s a part of me that… I don’t want to say identifies with, but maybe silently roots for the criminal underdog in a situation like this? I have to think I’m not alone in this regard. I know piracy is a huge problem and concern for the industry I cover (though the shakedowns over cell phones without cameras at all-media screenings three days before a film’s release have, mercifully, slowed), and I’m not daft enough to fail to recognize its impact on studios’ bottom lines. But with industry aligned against them, and all their marshaled resources, I guess I admire the anarchic, open-source, tech warrior spirit of those that would still try to enact massive duplication-for-profit schemes, because there’s clearly an element of fuck-you, catch-me-if-you-can competition to their endeavors. Hollywood makes all kinds of movies glamorizing master swindlers (Ocean’s Thirteen, Duplicity, et al), but when something like this is pulled on them they always turn to the feds, and start pulling all the strings that will assist them in future favorable protective legislation.

I guess I’d call it the Terry Benedict factor; in livelihood crimes of this type (i.e., no gunplay, kidnapping or violence, but clearly for profit), when the details are removed and they’re boiled down to their barest essence, there’s typically a hungry, entrepreneurial mover/schemer on one side and on the other someone who’s kind of a douche, or at least a rube. In this equation, Hollywood studios are the latter, plain and simple. And it’s not just a rich guy/poor guy thing; it has something to do with the fact that they haven’t instilled a proper cultural respect for what they do, and their products.