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Hacker claims to leak new season of Netflix's "Orange Is The New Black"

SAN FRANCISCO -- A hacker claims to have stolen the upcoming season of Netflix's hit series "Orange Is The New Black" and has purportedly released most of the new episodes online.

The hacker, operating under the name The Dark Overlord, purportedly uploaded the first episode to an illegal file-sharing service and demanded the video streaming service pay an unspecified ransom to prevent the release of additional episodes. 

The hacker later said an additional 10 episodes of the 13-episode season had been uploaded after Netflix was "unresponsive" to the ransom request. CBS News could not legally confirm the authenticity of the files. 

New episodes of "Orange" are scheduled for official release on June 9. 

Netflix said that a small production vendor that works with several major TV studios had suffered a breach. The Los Gatos, California, company described it as an "active situation" that's being investigated by the FBI and other authorities. 

Pirated copies of "Orange" could dent Netflix's subscriber growth and the company's stock price

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In the ransom note, The Dark Overlord claimed to have stolen series from other studios, too, by breaking into a single company. The purported hacker promised to also release those titles unless "modest" ransoms are paid. 

A subsequent statement purportedly from the hacker announced the release of the additional episodes.

Rumors of a massive leak of Hollywood films and TV episodes have been circulating online for months, fed by purported screenshots of the footage and a copy of a proposed deal to delete the stolen material in return for tens of thousands of dollars in electronic currency. 

When the AP contacted The Dark Overlord in February, the hacker said the purloined video wouldn't be made publicly available after all, making the far-fetched claim that "no one really (cares) about unreleased movies and TV show episodes." 

Netflix is counting on "Orange" to help it add 3.2 million subscribers from April through June. That's substantially higher than the company's average gain of 1.8 million subscribers in the same period over the past five years. 

Whenever Netflix's quarterly subscriber gains fall short of management's projections, the company's stock usually plunges.

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