Internet leak of Star Wars film a trap for file-sharing services

• The appearance online of Revenge of the Sith before its official release raises some interesting questions, particularly in light of yesterday's take-down of the Elite Torrent BitTorrent indexing site.
• Was the leak in fact a honey trap set up by the MPAA to give bounty hunters a clear shot at nailing torrent users?
• That's what a couple of emails from people who prefer to remain anonymous suggest, a possibility bolstered by the fact that in their press statement, the FBI and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement were able to state, very specifically, that Episode III - Revenge of the Sith was, "available for downloading on the network more than six hours before it was first shown in theatres" and in the next 24 hours, "was downloaded more than 10,000 times".
• Fast work for hide-bound federal agencies which normally need weeks of committeee meetings and countless signed approvals before they can move.
• And, "Responding to news reports today that BitTorrent is already facilitating the illegal file sharing of the final Star Wars episode, Revenge of the Sith which opens in theaters today, Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) President and CEO Dan Glickman made the following statement," said an MPAA misinformation release on May 19 - immediately after the "leak".
• Interestingly silent As we've pointed out several times, the Sith leak was a Hollywood work print which, one assumes, would have been accessible only to someone close to the movie.
• And as we've also pointed out, there's been absolutely nothing on this from Glickman (or from anyone else belonging to the major studio cartel) and in the meanwhile, the movie is producing record-breaking, eye-popping revenues, leak or not (which coincidentally gives the lie to MPAA claims that file sharing is wrecking the business).
• Maybe it observed that when its brother organization the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) used its Antipiratbyrån clone to plant evidence in an ISP raid meant to close down p2p networks in Sweden, the scandal received scant attention in the mainstream press.