Days after Louis C.K. revealed plans to buy back his shelved feature film I Love You, Daddy, the movie has leaked online. On Monday, a 1.5-gigabyte rip of the movie was released on Pirate Bay, according to Variety. Ripped from an awards-season screener (many of which arrived in critics’ mailboxes the same day the New York Times exposé revealing C.K.’s years-long history of sexual misconduct was published), the piracy group Hive-CM8 said it was sharing the movie since its release was uncertain. After C.K.’s misconduct allegations came to light, The Orchard, which bought the movie at the Toronto Film Festival for $5 million, said it was shelved indefinitely.
Hive-CM8 usually has rules against releasing screeners before Christmas, but made a special allowance since “it never made it to the cinema, and nobody knows if it ever will go to retail at all,†the group said in a statement that accompanied the pirated film, according to Variety. “Either way their [sic] is no perfect time to release it anyway, but we think it would be a waste to let a great Louis C.K. go unwatched and nobody can even see or buy it.â€