Fake Torrent Stats Fool Filmmakers

The makers of the film “X’s and O’s,” have piracy to thank for Hollywood’s renewed interest for their romantic comedy. Thanks to tens of thousands of illegal downloads the film will get a second chance.

“I joked with Kedar last week that he just made an $850,000 viral video … LOL,” Christopher Hill, the editor of “X’s and O’s” wrote to the New York Times. “We’re pretty thrilled.”

Indeed, they have a reason to be excited because this pirate hit landed the movie makers a TV-deal and a rerelease of the DVD in December. What a great success, all thanks to piracy.

There is only one slight problem and that is the accuracy of the download figures.

After reading the New York Times article we decided to take a look at the BitTorrent stats we collect at TorrentFreak. We found out that the movie had approximately 1000 downloads a week on average, not 150.000 as the article states.

The filmmaker probably made the mistake to count the fake stats that some sites provide as a form of advertisement. The real stats are in fact quite disappointing, but if they can get a TV deal out of it they have our blessing.