WTF?! Avengers: Endgame is completely sold out through the weekend, so you are just channel surfing instead. All of a sudden, you see a trailer for it, but it's not a trailer. It's a janky video that someone took of the entire movie in the theater! How could this be? That is exactly what thousands of cable customers in the Philippines must have been saying the day after opening night.
A Philippine cable television provider may be in hot water after airing a bootlegged copy of Avengers: Endgame.
Orient Cable, the primary cable television service in Dipolog City in the Philippines showed a pirated version of the record-breaking Marvel movie only one day after its premiere last Wednesday. Not only that, it was not even a decent quality recording.
Philippine News Agency notes that now the cable provider is being sued by Teatro de Dapitan, a local theater chain in the Zamboanga del Norte district. It claims that not only did Orient Cable break copyright laws including the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, the Anti-Camcording Act, and the Cybercrime Prevention Act, it damaged the theater’s ticket sales by airing the movie to the public.
Orient has not commented on the matter, so it’s anyone’s guess as to why anyone in charge would allow such a thing.
It is too early to say if Disney will pursue legal action against the cable provider. Despite the film's pirating, the film has broken 144 box office records, according to TheWrap, including a global opening of more than $1.2 billion, a $350 million opening weekend in the US, and a $330 million over the course of five days in China. It’s is highly unlikely that Orient Cable hurt Disney’s bottom line on the production, but that doesn’t leave it in the clear.
TechSpot has reached out to Disney for comment. We will let you know if they respond.
