Brad Pitt and his Oscar-winning production company Plan B have acquired the rights to make a film about online hacktivist group Anonymous.

Plan B secured the rights to produce a film based on the Rolling Stone article Anonymous vs. Steubenville, which details the story of Anonymous battling the cover-up of a teenage rape in Steubenville, Ohio.

In 2012 an unconscious 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by two American football players from the local high school. The attack went on for hours and was filmed by the attackers, who bragged about it on social media.

In November 2013 a jury indicted Steubenville's school superintendent Michael McVey on charges of tampering with evidence relating to the rape case and obstructing justice. An elementary school teacher and two football coaches were also charged.

Anonymous hacktivists had already picked up on the cover-up and set out to expose the accused although their exposé occasionally went too far.

There were reports that protesters wearing the Guy Fawkes masks often associated with Anonymous were throwing rocks at the homes of locals in Steubenville.

Anonymous member Deric Lostutter told Rolling Stone's David Kushner: "Anonymous is the internet and you can't control the internet. They're f***ing renegades, dude, and a lot of them are 15, 16-year-old kids. You can't tell them mother**kers nothing."

The footballers, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, who were 16 at the time of the sexual assault, were eventually sentenced but only on the lesser charges and each received a one-year sentence for distributing pictures of the victim naked.

Lostutter was arrested on charges of invasion of privacy and faces up to 10 years in prison.

He said on Twitter: