Man who allegedly leaked new Avatar: The Last Airbender film arrested for illegal server access

SINGAPORE – A 26-year-old man who allegedly leaked the unreleased film The Legend Of Aang: The Last Airbender, the first animated movie in the Avatar franchise, has been arrested for accessing a media server without authorisation.

He allegedly downloaded an unreleased animated film and leaked parts of it online, the police said in a statement on April 24.

The police said they received a report on April 16 about the circulation of parts of an unreleased film on social media platforms.

The man was identified and arrested within a day of the report.

Various electronic devices belonging to him were seized, and a copy of the film was recovered from his devices.

The police said preliminary investigations revealed that the man had gained unauthorised remote access to the server and downloaded the film, which he later posted parts of online.

He is currently being investigated for unauthorised access to computer material, which carries a maximum jail term of seven years, a fine not exceeding $50,000, or both.

This comes after the upcoming film, set to be released on streaming platform Paramount Plus in October, was allegedly leaked online by someone based in Singapore who uses the social media handle @ImStillDissin.

In an April 12 post on social media platform X, the person claimed that American production company Nickelodeon, which animated the film, “accidentally e-mailed” him “the entire Avatar Aang movie”. Attached to the post, which has since garnered more than 30 million views, is a now-deleted extract of the movie, Esquire magazine reported.

Within a day, the videos surfaced on other sites, including US internet forum site 4chan, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which reported that the full movie had been leaked by April 13 by an unrelated account, which also appears to belong to someone in Singapore.