MPAA Sued Over DVD Screener Ban

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."

Comments

Solution?

[gandy909]

It seems to me the easiest, least costly, least annoying solution to this 'problem' is that the Oscar people only include for voting on in the current 'Oscar Year' films that have made their full public viewing runs buy a date certain. If you want to be a 'screener' go to the theater like everybody else. This would COMPLETELY negate the need to send out those special DVD's.
Problem solved.

OTOH, I guess it's just more fun to have chaos and controversy running rampant, eh?