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MPAA Sued Over DVD Screener Ban

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the we-want-awards-too dept.

bigjnsa500 writes "Fourteen small movie houses are suing the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) trying to stop the ban on DVD 'screeners'. 'It will chill the financing of independent films by limiting the awards they can receive', say the plaintiffs, who include Talking Wall Pictures, Sandcastle 5 Productions and Salty Features. They feel they are being treated differently because several 'specialty' indy film shops are still allowed to send out 'numbered, encoded videocassettes' to Oscar voters. This ban was issued by MPAA President Jack Valenti initially to stop the illegal distribution of DVD screeners on the Internet."

5 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Are they upset that the competition is limited? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 5, Informative
    All films including indie films were originally banned from sending screeners to voters of awards like Academy, Golden Globe, etc because of misuse of the screeners. Now the ban applies only to lesser awards (best cinematography in a film about sheep-herding, etc). Unfortunately, indie films do very well in these lesser awards. The major awards like Best Picture, etc. are already dominated by the bigger studios in terms of marketing and promotion. So indie films are complaining that this limits their exposure.

    The indie films cannot offer a screener in these categories less face the wrath of the MPAA which controls the Academy Awards and a great deal of the movie industry.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  2. sometimes you CAN skip the crap: by Dynamic+Ranger · · Score: 5, Informative

    When I first got my DVD player I found that if you try to "skip" to the next "chapter" it doesn't work; you have to watch the commercials.

    But if you hit "stop" and then "play" without powering off, it goes right to the movie. :)

  3. IPO to fund new movie by Saeger · · Score: 2, Informative
    I read an article the other day about Ethan Hawke's next movie, "Billy Dead", trying a new way to get financing: by selling 900,000 IPO shares @ $8.75.

    Sounds like a good idea to me. I'd love to pay for what amounts to advance movie ticket(s) to get a movie made that I want want to go see (or download), and sell short the shit I don't. Making a little change off of good taste doesn't hurt either.

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    Power to the Peaceful
  4. No worky by hamsterboy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Most screener rips aren't distributed as straight copies; usually they're DivX or XviD, heavily compressed. So any straight-data change will most likely be lost in the conversion process.

    At any rate, there's an easy way around this; do a diff between screeners from two different sources. If there's any identifying information, scramble it in the copy that's distributed, so that there's no way of telling where it came from.

    Hamster

  5. Re:Define "screeners"... by Shaklee39 · · Score: 2, Informative

    taken from vcdhelp.com:

    Screener
    A video usually recorded form a promotional video tape or DVD which is sent to censors and film critics etc. The quality is usually as good as a commercial video or DVD. Sometimes a copyright message appears on the screen.