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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.
What they are going to say when movies are leaked now? It will happen.
The movie industry will have to fess up that some of the most respected people in their industry are in fact IP theives. Just like they want to paint everyone else to be. It'll be fun to watch.
The accademy should (quietly) distribute watermarked copies - with individual watermarks - to the members - and then take action against the responsible member(s) if the material ends up on the black market.
It's the height of hypocracy to swat at unauthorized copiers among the customer base in such a way as to create massive colateral damage among non-violators while simultaneously giving the industry insiders immunity.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
At least the MPAA is taking a more consumer-friendly approach to it's piracy problem. No matter what they do, I applaud them for not caving in to the level of the RIAA by sending supoenas to their consumer base.
Seriously?
Really, how is this bad news for anyone who isn't trying to steal content? I'm a strong advocate of being able to backup and/or copy things that I have a legal right to. I'm also a strong opponent of "tools" like the DMCA that use corporate fear to try to over-legislate or get rid of technology because it *could be* used to break the law.
But restricting screeners to academy members is only "bad news" if you were hoping that someone in the wider distribution list was going to copy the movies and distribute.
Espousing piracy significantly weakens an anti-MPAA stance. In fact, it plays right into the pro-MPAA argument saying "the only reason people want the ability to copy is so they can pirate."
If you're against the MPAA's position on heavy-handed anti-technology legislation, I'm with you. If you're only in it because you want to steal some stuff... coun't me out.
Yeah, and they're also spared having to decide what to vote for when many of the movies under consideration can't be seen in a movie theater within hundreds of miles of where they live.
There are more catagories than "Best Big Stupid Blockbuster."
A lot of Academy members are just working shlubs too. Wives, kids, toilets that don't flush but roofs that do. They don't necessarily have time to go traipsing around looking for obscure films that even the art houses stopped showing months ago, but they can pop a DVD in the player a few nights a week after getting the kiddies to bed.
Not distributing screeners is not only dumb, it's pointless for avoiding piracy. Hell, most of the stuff is in the wild already.
KFG
The reason they banned the DVD's was they said tech geeks where pirating the movies too much when they sent the DVD's out, so likewise to prevent it they wouldnt let anyone (major studios, or indie) release them out to the voters, making the voters go to the local movie theaters to see them.
The truth was they where putting the blame on us cause we where an easy target, the real reason they banned them was the only way most indie movies got screened and voted on WAS caused they released them on DVD to the voters. The majors pissed they have lost so many oscars to the indies decided what would be the best way to tip the scales and saw the fact that most theaters dont play indies or play them for a very limited time that it was a easy way to get more major films screened and voted on than minor ones.
SOOOOO all of the big wigs wispered in the ears of the MPAA to get the ban put in place, and the MPAA not caring about the 100 or so indie companies under their wings put the sweaping ban in place much to the horror to all of the critics/indies/directors/and actors who had both not a clue it was going to happen and no say when it did happen.
Well in protest a huge number of smaller awards shows decided to take the year off, along with the Golden Globes which shocked the MPAA into realizing it made a horrable mistake since not only was the excuse of it was the piraters fault not taken seriously but everyone was now gunning to take the MPAA down including its own members who outnumbered the small majority of major studio members who where in control.
and thus why we should care, cause while no one took them to be serious, we the Tech geeks where to blam with yet another of lifes problems that really isnt a problem.
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Roger Ebert wrote a column about this when the decision to ban screeners was announced. I tend to agree with most of his points, and can't wait to see what he says about this latest turn of events. We should all be happy, and not because this likely means more pirated pre-release copies of movies. No, it means there'll be some degree of fairness and equal exposure in oscar selection.
As if the major studios don't control hollywood enough, a ban on DVD distribution would have killed most independant studios chances of even being considered for an oscar.
Movies with limited distribution, and fewer available numbers of prints would've been shut out in favor of those which can afford advertising, and set up screenings at enough locations that a significant portion of the academy could view them.
This move at least allows some degree of fairness. All movies have the chance of being viewed by all screeners, regardless of who distributes or produces them. It's still not perfect, but it's much better this way.