MPAA Calls for Ban on Screeners

neoThoth writes "The MPAA is calling for a ban on all screeners for awards ceremonies. They state piracy as the rationale for killing of this tradition of the industry. It's interesting how this is never mentioned in their cries for tougher piracy laws. It's own members are the main source of piracy. 'The Directors, Writers and Screen Actors Guild all get screeners, as does the Golden Globe-selecting Hollywood Foreign Press Association and various critics' groups.'" Remember, movie piracy doesn't just hurt actors, but also camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers.

Comments

X-mas for pirates... no more?

[mr.henry]

Man, this is weak. I always look forward Academy screener time. I get to toss out my old, crappy telesync SVCDs and replace them with pristine DVD-Rs.

As much as I hate the MPAA,

[Frederique Coq-Bloqu]

they should have the right to influence something like this at a private function like the Oscars. This doesn't strike me as provocative or unscrupulous in and of itself.

Re:As much as I hate the MPAA,

[startled]

But why bother? The studio mailing out the tapes is the studio whose movie gets illegally distributed. There's no need for an MPAA recommendation; if a studio thinks its movies are being distributed by screeners, they can stop mailing them out, or take whatever other measures they deem appropriate.

Don't forget.

[GMontag]

Remember, movie piracy doesn't just hurt actors, but also camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers.

Don't forget the Best Boy!

The forgotten

[l810c]

Remember, movie piracy doesn't just hurt actors, but also camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers.

You forgot the fluffers

Re:The forgotten

[Brainboy]

Meh, fluffers suck anyways.

Easier solution

[Night Goat]

I don't see why the MPAA just doesn't make slight, but easily noticeable differences between each screener. Maybe have a numeric code flash quickly onto the screen occasionally. Like what they do if there's a spy but they don't know who, they give out fake information and see which fake info the enemy acts on. If a certain coded screener gets pirated, then the MPAA knows who to send the lawsuit to.
I can't see David Letterman actually going and PAYING to see all the crap movies that his guests make!

Re:Easier solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a pirate. I've seen steganography in action, admittedly in a different field, but I've seen it, and have the desire to obviously protect the privacy of my sources at all costs, as have virtually all groups. I have little experience of movie piracy directly, but I know a few people and I know exactly how they'd handle this.

Always get more than one source. Compare. More than two would be good too. This goes double if it's an analog source, because you could work between them and get a better quality.

Any per-source steganography will be noticed, and any steganography that wouldn't be noticed by multiple sources wouldn't narrow down the source hunt.

Additionally, you need to be aware that some sources are BEFORE any such steganography would be added. Ever considered the possibility that the guys who'd put the steganography in are, in fact, the guys who work as group and pro sources, getting paid more for that than their day job?

Besides, this will merely lead to a shift from DVD screeners to the even more incredible phenomenon of the telecine. Done correctly, this can be better than retail DVD quality in some cases. Once a film is out there are thousand of copies of it. Two or three digitally sampled masters from actual analog film reels, and you could remove film grain as well as steganography, leading to better compression. All you need is unrestricted access to a couple of movie theaters. I wouldn't be surprised to learn of groups whose members not only work in movie theaters as projectionists, but actually fucking own them.

The movie industry doesn't have much to fear from piracy compared to the music industry. They aren't quite as jaded, they aren't quite as crap, they don't have quite as much control as they think they have, and much more importantly they really aren't anywhere near as overpriced. And there is significant value added in seeing a good projection at a cinema vs. even a really good quality telecine/DVD-rip, and they make the serious money from concessions anyway. They'll still be around, and they'll still be busy.

Meanwhile the music industry is caught trying to do the same thing, but frankly, the problem is it just sucks. Concerts ain't so good, and are WAY overpriced, and hard to run, and irregular, and get massive rushes of people, whereas cinema screenings are small and can happen in several places at once. Music industry really doesn't have an easy way out of this. The movie industry, by comparison, has it made.

Note that the first people to get something out will probably fail to do this. The first releasers are at very high risk, as they traditionally rush and race to be first. Most people wait for the ones with a marginally greater eye for quality and detail (Centropy et al), and those are the ones who will survive stego. Weed out the crap groups, that's what I say!

Re:Easier solution

[doormat]

Yea, they do.. its called dots... they use a series of dots in various frames throughout the movie to track where the copies come from. Of course the warez groups are on to this, and photoshop the frames that contain the dots to remove or alter them to protect their suppliers...

Re:Easier solution

[athorshak]

Two or three digitally sampled masters from actual analog film reels, and you could remove film grain as well as steganography, leading to better compression

while I agree with the rest of your post, you should NOT be trying to remove film grain. Grain is an intentional part of the image. Different film stocks are chosen for different films and scenes specifically for their grain structure. On film where this is obvous to even a casual viewer is Minority Report. Speilberg gave this film an intetionally overexposed and extremely grainy look. You should NEVER try to remove grain from a film image.

Not only actors?

[caranha]

Remember, movie piracy doesn't just hurt actors, but also camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers.

Whithout entering the merit of piracy itself, isn't this argument a fallacy? Aren't only high-profile actors/diretors/etc rewarded a percentage of the movie income, while all the others receive the same no matter what?

Don't want to enter the issue "but piracing will make movies spend less money" (which I doubt, based on current trend), but I got curious by this part.

--
No sig yet. Bear with it.

Re:Not only actors?

[SWPadnos]

Remember, movie piracy doesn't just hurt actors, but also camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers.

...

Don't want to enter the issue "but piracing will make movies spend less money" (which I doubt, based on current trend), but I got curious by this part.

This is the only argument that can possibly support the original statement. Only the people at the top level get any residuals - everyone else works for a daily wage and that's it. In fact, most people are working as subcontractors hired for the duration of the project (or their part in it). The grips, production assistants, special effects people, camera assistants, caterers, craft services, drivers, extras ... are all essentially self-employed. The unions help by providing health insurance and pension plans, and collective bargaining.

So, the only way that the "bottom of the pack" people get affected is if the industry as a whole goes into a slump because of piracy.

Not in a million years...

[JayBlalock]

Being able to stick "200X ACADEMY AWARD WINNER!" on your DVD package moves too many units for any studio to do ANYTHING to handicap themselves in the Awards race. The MPAA might push for this. The studios might even "agree." But they'll get the screeners out anyway. Paranoia will rule the day - no one will actually expect anyone else to abide by the agreement, so they'll all break it.

It's foolish that they're even TALKING about this. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that this means the movie industry's own people are the ones bootlegging movies. "If the people who make the movies are putting them out there, then how's it wrong for me to download?" (rhetorical, exampliary question) Bad, bad, BAD move.

How about banning awards instead?

[k98sven]

I mean, does anyone really give a damn about the Oscars?

It's the industry celebrating itself in a annual act of masturbation on national TV.

If you disagree, please explain why Kevin Costner has a "Best Director" award but not Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock or Akira Kurosawa?

Re:How about banning awards instead?

[skribe]

Hitchcock never won because he was up against other 'greats': Billy Wilder (The Apartment & The Lost Weekend), John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath), Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront) and Leo McCarey (Going My Way).

Likewise Kubrick lost out to Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest); William Friedkin (French Connection); Carol Reed (Oliver); and George Cukor (My Fair Lady).

Kurosawa lost out primarily because he was Japanese, but also because his solitary directorial nomination was up against Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa.

Costner may have been up against supremely qualified directors (Scorsese and Coppola) but it was IMHO hardly their best work (Goodfellas and Godfather III respectively).

To summarise, Costner had a weaker field than either Kubrick or Hitchcock. As far as Kurosawa is concerned IIRC there's only ever been one non-english language winner of Best Director/Best Film (Vita e bella, La). It sucks but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

skribe

Re:How about banning awards instead?

[Enonu]

I fear the day I have to play you Trivial Pursuit.

Do we still purchase the DVD?!

[fervent_raptus]

I think the MPAA is totally overacting. How many geeks out there are actually going to substitute a DivX for the cinimatic experience of going to a movie theater?

Personally, I know people who had access to the LOTR DVD screener rip, and downloaded it, but waited to watch it until after the movie came out.

They then proceeded to watch the movie in theaters 3 or 4 times before ever playing the DivX file.

It wasn't until the period between the movie leaving theaters and coming out on DVD that the DivX file came in handy.

These friends not only purchased the regular version DVD when it came out, but also the extended version DVD.

IMO, if the MPAA want's to stop the popularity of DVD Screener rips, they should release the movie in DVD the same week it comes to theaters.

Re:Do we still purchase the DVD?!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

You're right, of course. But it is an article of faith among the entertainment cartel that 1 copied file == 1 lost sale. Just as the RIAA is unwilling to consider the idea that file-sharing might actually help sales of good music (people do go out and buy albums after hearing a couple of good MP3's off those albums; but the albums they buy are more likely to be from obscure bands rather than whatever insipid Top 40 pap is currently getting all the advertising bucks) the MPAA is unwilling to consider the idea that a movie made to be seen in the the theater (as the LOTR films definitely are) might, if first seen on a pirated DVD, actually help draw people into the theater to see it. This is not a rational cost-benefit analysis on their part; it's a matter of paranoid ideology. The long, sad history of how paranoid ideologues react when confronted by sweet reason does nothing to convince me that they'll change their minds any time soon.

Actually, it's not just the entertainment industry that think this way. How many times do we hear M$ et al. claiming "Software piracy cost us $XX billion in lost sales last year," as though everyone who burned a copy of an Office CD would otherwise have gone out and bought the damn thing for full price? At least in the software industry it's a little wink-wink nudge-nudge, though; e.g., Adobe knows full well that all the Photoshop copies out there are training the next generation of Adobe customers. But the entertainment folks are dead serious in their wacko worldview.

Remember...

[wozster]

The auto industry doesn't just hurt the "Horse and Buggy" industry, it also hurts the wooden wheel maker.

Not true

[1 (smarterThanYou)]

Remember, movie piracy doesn't just hurt actors, but also camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers. Actually based on how the movie industry operates...these people were all compensated before the release of the movie. They work in a union and most of them don't do anything on the set anyways....they are just the backup in case the head guy takes an extra coffee break. The only people really getting screwed are the ones that distribute and produce the movies. Distributors make a good percentage of theater profits, having to take care of the end of producing additional prints of the film and then securing contracts with theaters to show them. Producers also make a percentage of ticket sales, but also make a percentage on every DVD/VHS/Any-Future-Media purchase. Theaters make a very small percentage, if at all, and obviously make their money off the concessions. Distributors and Theaters will re-negotiate their deals based on how the movie does during the opening weekend. What is also BS is that typically more than half of the proceeds from movie tickets is made on opening weekend. So in the time it would take a person to video tape it and distribute it, if this person isn't an insider at the movie theater or at the studio/distribution house, it would only affect subsequent weekends which are much less important. Long story short, it doesn't affect any of those people, just the people who are taking a percentage of the profits from DVD sales, i.e. Production Company, Distribution Company, Investors, (sometimes actors).

Re:Slashdot really POs me sometimes....

[Joe Tie.]

You know what bugs me? When people refer to a giant slashdot collective, as if everyone here thought the same things about every issue. Did you ever thing that perhaps it could have been different people posting whose opinion you're remembering, or even that you could simply be remembering the slant you want to remember from discussions with multiple viewpoints?

Re:Remember, piracy hurts X

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

There's a large segment of pirating acts that occur largely because the pirates aren't going to purchase something.

Neither you nor the MPAA has proven that either way, last time I checked. The MPAA (and RIAA and BSA) likes to say that they lose revenue, whereas copyright infringers justify their behaviour by saying they wouldn't pay for the crappy movie/game/software/music anyhow.

I call BS on both those statements. I imagine the truth is somewhere in the middle...