Twitter’s new feature exploited for illegal upload of John Wick 4

According to a recent report, John Wick: Chapter 4 was uploaded on Twitter. However, shortly after this upload, the file has been taken down already for obvious copyright violations. Reportedly, the user took advantage of a new feature of Twitter Blue. This particular feature is raising some concerns as the platform could become a good place for piracy to spread.

John Wick: Chapter 4 was illegally shared on Twitter

John Wick: Chapter 4 will be released on the Lionsgate Platform on June 23. Until then, you may still be able to find the film in theaters depending on your region. Ahead of the movie’s debut on streaming, someone decided to use Twitter’s large file upload to share the film with Blu-Ray Quality. According to the report, a Twitter user named ‘World of Lean’ uploaded the entire film to Twitter.

The user uploaded the entire movie in two tweets – 1 hour and 59 minutes and another 38 minutes and 45 seconds. John Wick 4 is one of the most successful releases in the franchise. It already collected around $1 billion worldwide.

The user decided to explore the new feature right after its announcement. To recall, Elon Musk recently announced that Twitter users are now able to upload two hours long videos with a max file size of 8 GB. That’s more than enough to build a strong new piracy platform. Obviously, this is not the use that Twitter considered. Now, the platform will need to adapt strict policies to avoid new episodes like this one.

Is John Wick 4 Wrong Uploading just the beginning?

Twitter took down the first tweet after almost two hours of the John Wick movie. The message now reads: “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner”. MySmartPrice obtained screenshots of the leaked file while it was still accessible. As you can see below, the film was available in good quality.

As you can see in the image, on May 24, 2023. The video had about 116K views, 342 Retweets, 202 Quotes, 1,188 likes, and 931 bookmarks. As per the report, the video had been taken down by a copyright claim sent to Twitter by Lionsgate Play. This incident is likely to fuel the ongoing controversy surrounding Twitter since Musk’s takeover.

Will Twitter become a new hub for piracy?

As we’ve written before, the user took advantage of Twitter’s new feature. In a bid to promote its new Twitter Blue subscription, the social media allows its users to upload two hours of content. Besides the time limit, we also have a file size limit of 8 GB. That’s more than enough to upload a high-quality movie nowadays. Those uploading shorter shows, or animes will also benefit from this feature. Therefore, Twitter needs to take significant measures to control its content. The most controversial thing is that the user who uploaded the content was not subscribed to Twitter’s paid subscription. So we can only assume that it also involves a bug causing “standard” users to be able to explore the feature.

We believe that the feature is backfiring. It will certainly attract some users, but in most cases, we will see people trying to explore it to do the same and upload more movies. The company will need to adopt strict measures to control the content being uploaded. Otherwise, Twitter will become a new place for piracy. That is certainly not the original idea.

The Problem of Piracy and how it can affect Twitter

Piracy is still a big problem that affects the industry of movies, music, games, and more. Content creators have been engaged in a cat-and-mouse game, but it’s still hard to control how things spread on the web. The rise of streaming platforms allows people to seamlessly watch content for a monthly fee. This discouraged some users from consuming pirated content, but the problem still exists. According to GIPC, NERA Economic Consulting, the global movie industry’s revenue losses from digital piracy are between $40 and $97.1 billion per year.

Twitter keeps losing popularity thanks to some of Elon Musk’s unpopular decisions. The latest episode can bring more problems. Twitter reportedly lost many advertisers, and this kind of episode may not help with the social media’s image. This certainly could be a problem once competition emerges.