Oscar Screener Ban to be Revoked for Academy Members

bigjocker writes "Yahoo is reporting that the ban to distribute screeners copies will be revoked. The bad news is that only members of the Academy will receive them." It's still unclear how this will affect events such as the Golden Globe awards. According to the article, several critics' organisations have yet to decide their reaction. I'm guessing that at the least, Academy members are pleased to know they won't have to find a theatre to screen award nominees.

Comments

Re:They should watermark them.

[cK-Gunslinger]

What a great idea and insightful idea!

From the article (emphasis mine):

The studios reportedly agreed to send out VHS screeners (recipients previously had a choice between VHS and DVD) encrypted with a special security code traceable to individual Academy members. (Such a move will, presumably, keep the likes of Steven Spielberg (news) from cranking out a few extra copies and selling them on eBay.)

Re:This just in...

[KFury]

I'll tell you who does : the legions of people who download those screeners on P2P. They are the true big losers of this decision.

No. The big losers are the ones who don't grok the post. The decision repeals the ban of home copies. This means the P2P folk once again have access to these films.

So, other than saying that P2P pirates are losers in the first place, you've got it backwards.

Oh no!

[Dirtside]

I'm guessing that at the least, Academy members are pleased to know they won't have to find a theatre to screen award nominees.

God forbid the people voting on the pictures should have to see them in the environment they were intended to be viewed in. :) Yeah, I know that it's not feasible for every Academy member to see every movie that's nominated in every category... I suppose one solution would be that members would only vote on categories in which they HAD seen all the nominated films. Dunno how you'd enforce that, but I imagine that simply asking them to do so would probably work well enough (modulo members voting for movies that they had some interest in, worked on, really liked, etc.).

Last year's Oscars had 52 nominated films. You can remove nineteen of those for the two short film categories (five films each), the foreign-language film category (five more films), the documentary feature category (five films), and the documentary short subject category (four films), leaving 33 films for the other categories. (Not to diminish the importance of these categories, but we have to start somewhere.) Most Academy voters will probably already have seen at least half of those 33 films before the nominations are even announced. So having to see another 17 films between the nomination announcement and the end of voting? What a tragedy! To be forced to go watch a bunch of Oscar-nominated films, in order to vote in a big popularity contest. :)

Re:Oh no!

[spellcheckur]

Academy voters are already required to vote only in categories in which they've seen all the films. That's what the purpose of screeners (or private screenings) is for: to level the playing field.

Michael Moore made a huge deal about it last year when he thought he wouldn't win Best Documentary. "Bowling for Columbine" was for a mainstream audience, and not enough "mainstream" voters had seen the others in his category.

As for enforcement on the policy... no idea.

L.A. Critics Call Off Awards

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,12732,00.htm l

Re:Im not even really sure what the hell

[uberdave]

In order to win an academy award, your movie must be seen by the people who vote on such things. It was customary to send these people a "screener", in other words, a copy of the movie (usually on DVD) that they can watch at their leisure. The MPAA, in an effort to reduce theft on the high seas and kidnapping, (yes, in addition to "piracy", they are now referring to "illegally abducted films"), had put a ban on screeners. This ban meant that the only way a movie could be seen by the voting membership was in the theatres. This would make the voting unfair, since foreign films, and indie films, and "art" films rarely make it into the local movie theatres. That ban has, in part, been lifted, freeing the way for quality movies to win the awards that would otherwise have been restricted to the mind numbing blockbuster.