Slashdot Mirror
Oscar Screener Leak Traced
EvilLiberalGuy writes "CNN has an article about a leak of a screener copy of 'Something's Gotta Give'. They are reporting that 'visible and hidden markings on the videocassette copy on the Internet identify it as the one sent to Carmine Caridi, a film and television actor'. Apparently this didn't stop the leak from happening in this case, but will it result in actions against Caridi and make others think twice before leaking films to the net?"
"pronoun actor": an actor who is familiar but lacking a name (like Brian Dennehy). Carmen Caridi has been in a shitload of movies and I can't find a photo of him anywhere.
In case you are wondering who Carmine Caridi is here's the IMDB link. He plays a lot of Italian type roles. Well with a name like Carmen Caridi....
I certainly hope that this doesn't ruin his chances of reprising his role in the sequel to "KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park" (Oh you know you want it)
I guess it's back to going to the movies or waiting for the dvd.
Action should be taken against those who release poor quality movies, such as "Gotta Give".
You know when I was a lad you could trust a policeman to get you to the church on time, but seems that now even 69 year old actors like Carmine Caridi can't be trusted not to digitize and upload screeners they get sent to the Internet.
These geriatric hooligans are ruining the Internet for the rest of us. The problem is they've got time on their hands, they retire and if they're not out on the streets selling drugs, they're at home violating copyrights on Kazaa.
Have they no shame!
I say bring back compulsory military service for the over 60s. They need a dose of good-old military discipline to whip them into shape. And if that doesn't work then cut off their supply of Tums.
Harsh I know, but it's the only language that they understand.
John.
It's only fitting that this guy was in such movies as "Life Sucks", "Runaways", and of course "Whacked"
I want an apology from the MPAA. All this time they have been blaming downloaders and moviegoes for "leaking" these screeners. Now we discover its one of their own. I wonder how many of the other screeners were "released" by other Academy members.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
I must ask....why would anyone WANT to pirate such a movie? If you're going to risk being exposed for leaking a movie...at least leak a movie worth downloading.
Just wait 6 or fewer months and get a copy from pay per view.
What? you don't have $3.99?
How much did you pay for your capture card?
Well this is certainly interesting.
I wonder if anyone is going to try and make the subject out to be a martyr or not.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Palladium! (different technology, same application)
Hacking articles at http://www.geocities.com/chroo
-T
This screener had the MPAA anti piracy ads like I have to watch in the movie theatre.
I especially like the one with the carpenter
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
I feel sorry for the guy, even if he did break the law.
For those of you with an interest in his career, here is the relevant IMDB link. I can't place him myself, perhaps someone could find a picture?
Here's a possible picture of him from images.google.com
Carmine Caridi
He's in conspiracy with the RIAA to take back control of HIS Internet
Diane Keaton in a theater, that's why you need to download it.
>> Caridi and make others think twice before
>> leaking films to the net?"
Can you imagine how many hands this went through before it got to Caridi? Manufacturing? Shipping? Someone had to imprint those special markings? Were the markings modified by the release group from one set to another that now matches the markings that were assigned to Caridi? Innocent until proven guilty here folks.
Carmine Caridi is about 70 years old which doesn't strike me as the typical source for screener releases.
You're missing Something from the movie title...
Am I the only one that finds it "out of character" for a guy who will be 70 years old in 10 days to be the one that leaked the film?
I mean, who is to say how the damn thing ended up on the Internet? Who knows what happened while burning the screener, in the mail room at the studios, during the mail delivery process, etc.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
A dumb out-of-work actor gets caught letting his copy of a screener be the one that gets onto the 'net. I wouldn't call this a setback, I'd call this proof that this idea works.
There's tons of ways a screener could be marked up so that unique ID numbers get inserted, and it was only a matter of time before everybody who got a screener got a serial number embeded into the content so that when the screener appears on the 'net, the leaker could be busted for a breach of their contract. For once, a copy-protection technology that I don't think anybody can argue with...
just because it was sent to this person doesn't mean they are the actual person who leaked it. who knows how many hands it had to pass before it was actually received by this person... from what i understand about most of these leaks it's usually a middle-man that ends up doing it or an insider source such as one of this person's assistants...
I sig, therefore I was.
In short, no, it won't stop priacy/leaks. It can't be stopped! Mwahaahaahahaa!!
What is your penile percentile?
I always wondered why company never before used some small markings on the film to identify screener movies found on the net. They should do that, instead of hoping to sue each and everyone of file sharers.
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
I dont think this was an intentional copyright violation, someone probably just saw the words 'gotta give' labeled on the media and thought they were instructions.
At least when the sequal, "Dont copy this you theiving bastards", screeners become available the hole will be closed.
"The academy required its 5,803 eligible Oscar voters to sign forms promising to protect their screener tapes before they were received. About 80 percent of voters signed and returned the forms."
i take it Carmine Caridi didn't sign, therefore can the MPAA can't do much can they?
Okay, how can they identify so-called 'hidden markings' in a (presumably) S-VCD rip? I mean, if it shows on the film, it's not hidden. And what are these markings anyway? Have they put specific names into the generic Do Not Distribute, This Is A Promotional Tape ticker? Sorry if this sounds noobish, but I've had a look at many screeners over the years, and I really can't figure out how they could place markings that at the same time wouldn't make the ripper worried he could be identified.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
What sort of retribution is the REST of the internet going to take against Caridi for releasing such a horror as a Something's Gotta Give screener upon us??
If there was ever a reason to give ICANN the ability to try people for Crimes Against Humanity, this would be it...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Really, good on them for making unique identifiers for each copy. I really do applaud them for doing this, I know many Slashdotters will reply saying I'm some kinda freak and I hate open source or something (they'll find a way), but realistically stealing a video is stealing a video. Whether you jack it off the shelf or download it from the net, the fact is you have a copy of a movie which you didn't pay for and is meant to be bought.
I do hope that this will discourage people from uploading their screener copies to the net.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We can tell, the movie sucks just by the name...
This whole hoopla was done deliberately in order to raise awareness of the film and build interest in seeing it.
Where as most of us would have not even noticed such a film, 10% of us will now at least pause and consider such a film!
Right... they send out a free copy of a film, but only after the receipient has signed a form that is analogous to an NDA. If someone violates an NDA you had them sign, then yes, you have a right to be pissed at them... called breach of contract or somesuch, depending on jurisdiction.
Anyone caught with a downloaded copy of this movie shouldn't be punished. Seeing Diane Keaton naked is worse than anything the courts could come up with.
in Godfather II (Carmine Rosato) and Godfather III (Albert Volpe) according to the IMDB. Coppola must be so embarrassed now.
now ISS is safe! Who would have ever thought that some Holywood idiot did it. How did he even get up there?
Table-ized A.I.
We'll its true that it may have not been Carmine's hands that leaked it (think grand kid or something), but it does says something that MPAA is not just looking at "us damn net kids and our fancy broadband"
Let's see some evidence; until then you will sound like a conspiracy-theory looney that nobody should take seriously.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
I predict that this won't get as far as the courts. If it did, the technique for encoding the identifying info would have to be exposed, risking that people will figure out how to find and remove it. I'm betting on a settlement. But that's just me; I could be wrong.
If it's the FedEX guy who makes a stop on his route to burn a couple of DVD's then repacks them discretely, then this isn't going to stop.
However, if it's the actor, this kind of publicity is going to make many in his industry think twice. Reputation is the only way an actor can make a living, and having this kind of monkey on his back is bound to leave him floating without any job prospects.
Imagine how many other Hollywood types who happen to "release" a screener from time to time notice this article (and future ones like it I'm sure) and realize their careers could be next? It's sure to make them all think twice and likely decide it's not worth the risk.
BTW for the record, while I do believe movies cost too much to make and market, that doesn't justify this kind of blatant piracy.
the one sent to Carmine Caridi, a film and television actor'
Should be:
the one sent to Carmine Caridi, 69, a film and television actor'
Not to diss the elderly too much, but please. Recall the woman in the same age demographic that the RIAA listed as hard core song file sharers? I'll bet any amount you care to name that a young relative with no idea of the digital signatures snitched this disk to do the upload. It's nearly impossible to beleive that this actor, who undoubtedly got the disk with a harshly worded warning not to do so, uploaded it to a filesharing network.
[the sound of imdb vicariously crashing as people try to figure out who Carmine Caridi is...]
I think it's more likely that this guy's kids did it, or that someone stole his mail (or his garbage...well, did you see the film in question?). I can't imagine some b-actor in his sixties having the ability or desire to leak a DIVX on Kazaa.
I was gonna moderate this article but it's just too juicy!
...sleeps with the fishes.
Heh, for all we know, he got it in the mail and said "Ugh, another stupid AOL disc" and pitched it into the trash can where some dumpster diver scored it.
On another note, now that it's been an "inside copy" that got out, can the MPAA please quit running the anti-piracy ads before movies? And can they drop that stupid proposed law banning "video recording devices" in theatres?
I'm honestly surprised it took them so long to figure out to add some kind of distinguishing mark(s) to movies! I'm kind of curious who this guy is, though.
I'm sure you mean the MPAA(The Motion Picture Association of America) and not the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America)
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
The article just says that there's an investigation under way and that the academy isn't identifying the screener being looked at; the LA Times is the one fingering Caridi. So while the Academy and the MPAA may occasionally be up to no good, there's no indication right now that in this case they're unfairly blaming the wrong guy. (And assuming that it couldn't be him because of his age would be a pretty poor way to run an investigation).
Actually, tracking down the leak is the right way to handle this. Go after the distributors and those actually responsible for the infringement. Enforcing your copyright is not in itself the problem; it's pretty clear here that someone is doing something wrong. The problem comes in the way you enforce it, and whether it's the screener or someone in the supply chain or a family member, tracking down that person is the way to go.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
I wonder how Mrs. Valenti will react when she finds out that Jack's bad behavior is responsible for the horse's head under the sheets.
how can the hole be closed if the title contains "copy this you"?
everyone will think it's some kind of a shareware kung-fu movie.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
..to this. Only because adding "II" to the end of that title probably qualifies it for the longest title in history...
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Maybe Carmine Caridi knew that leaking a screener copy of 'Something's Gotta Give' would be the only chance someone is going to watch that movie anyway... ;-)
-virgo cluster
Perhaps this guy got a little mixed-up in acting class. "No, no, you're not trying to be infamous. You're trying to be famous!"
The Travelling Adventurer
Please don't read my journal
Sounds like someone got caught in the canary trap, which I first heard about reading Tom Clancy (can't remember which novel)
You can read more about the Canary Trap here
--
Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bought with blood.
The MPAA sends out *free* copies of their films, one of said *free* copies makes it onto the Internet where the general public can consume for free
/. audience does it, downloading movies is still illegal. And if the movies are so crappy why are so many people downloading them and wasting their time by watching them?
So, if say, Ford, gives out a number of free cars to a number of important clients, and one of them gets stolen, then we can go and steal the rest of the Fords sitting in front of our nearby Ford plant and Ford should in no way get upset about it?
Or if an independent musician records a song and emails it for *free* to his friends and a copy of this *free* song gets posted on the internet and now everyone can download it for *free*. Why would the musician be upset?
Think a little more about what you're saying. Yes the MPAA are bastards, but they do have a right to protect thair assets. Just because it's easy and probably 50% of the
Casual Games/Downloads
And all of this time I thought that this guy got parts in Godfather II and III because of his acting abilities.
I guess it turns out that he got these roles because of "real life" experiences in the underworld.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What do you get when you cross a pirate and a mafia don?
-Caridi is a B-movie actor who has been in a ton of films, yet no one seems to have a picture of him, not even the IMDB.
-Caridi is given an advance copy of a movie. Now, perhaps this guy has more power than thought, but who gives an advance screening of a movie to a B-movie actor? Then again, when movies like Glitter and Gigli are leaked onto the Internet, who knows?
-Caridi is a 69 year-old man who allegedly had the knowledge to transfer a movie onto his computer and distribute it onto the Internet. My grandmother prints out e-mails and sends them via postal service to me. And I am supposed to believe this guy knows how to work video capture?
Add in other things like how bad the movie is and the unique tracking mechanisms, and one must seriously begin to wonder about the convenience of this discovery. Long live John Titor.
--Chag
here
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I'm sorry but the possibility of reuniting KISS and Anthony Zerbe is worth any sum of money. We already waited too long to include Don Steele. Let's not put this off any longer!
On another note, if these guys were working harder to make their movies better, the voters would go out to see the movies on their own (without expecting free copies) and they wouldn't be in this situation.
Heh - and let's say you don't like Volvo's, but you really need a car to get somewhere...it's ok to go steal one, but not buy one? It's all a relative scale...People who are too fucking cheap to buy stuff, will pirate whatever they want...some people even try and make money off of it (especially in some foreign countries)...If you don't want to pay to go see a movie, don't...but don't go download it to watch it for free - wait til it comes out on cable - as you well should know, the shitty movies come out on cable faster than the good ones...
Dude...pull the tinfoil hat on a little tighter, part of your head is still showing.
Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
Modded offtopic. However, the summary really WAS missing the word "Something's" in the movie title in the first few minutes. A method to make your truly INFORMATIVE comment become OFFTOPIC. Never saw that before. The situation is even INTERESTING too.
Did they alter each screener they sent out (over five thousand) and keep a record of this? what an expensive thing to do!
blakeops
There's such a big deal made over it because it affects rich people.
God spoke to me
Sorry, I don't think I made my point clearly... The film execs spend too much time playing games close to the oscars nowadays rather than just releasing as many good movies as they can. Am I the only one that noticed that the time of year dictates what type of movies will be in the theatres? Summer means blockbuster action flicks (since the teenagers are out of school), and the end of the year brings all the good movies that I would have paid for earlier in the year (since the oscars will be coming up and we want those movies fresh on your mind).
All I am saying is that if they weren't playing that game with the Oscar-worthy movies, the videos wouldn't be necessary for the screeners. The movies that are good enough to win the awards would get seen at some point since word-of-mouth is still a valid form of marketing.
Here's a solution. Require the voting Academy members to attend a theatre to see the movie, just like the rest of us do. Not only would it solve the problem of movie leaks, it would offer added support to their industry.
You never know, right?
Actually thats not such a bad idea worth considering. It is cuthroat enough to keep the RIAA in their corner and has enough PR embedded in it for the DRM/DMCA/RFID/RTFA crowd to jump on the bandwagon and take this to the top of the hill.
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep
this is a GOOD thing. this is what should have been happening for over a year. the MPAA has been going after movie fans who like to download movies, yet often end up buying the DVDs, when the leakage was an internal problem. though this will probably decrease the availablity of movies for me to download, at least the FBI isnt bashing down my door and calling me a pirate (I have never attacked a ship on the open seas, nor do I plan to). the ones that the MPAA should be getting upset at, are now the ones that they are. I STEAL MUSIC/MOVIES FROM THE INTERNET
Am I the only one that finds it "out of character" for a guy who will be 70 years old in 10 days to be the one that leaked the film?
Anyone remember Flo Fox? A seventy year old spamming grandmother. Those OAPs aren't as innocent as they look you know.
ajc.com appears to be down, but here's the Google cache copy
Allergy advice: Contains eggs.
the Paul Lynde Halloween Special? How good was it? Not only did it have Margaret Hamilton and feature Kiss playing "Beth", but it was written by Alan Thicke.
The screeners that I've seen seem to have been factory pressed, not DVD-R. I can't imagine how they can serialize the disks unless they are using DVD-R disks. Has anyone seen any recent screeners? Have they switched them all to DVD-R disks? That seems like a more expensive undertaking. I bet the smaller movie distributors are going to send out factory-produced, identical disks and not care about privacy. The indie movies are better anyway.
I don't know if this screener had it or not, but the people I know who get screeners have said that their names show up occasionally onscreen when the movie is playing. Maybe that's just from some studios; it's only started this year.
Given that, I can't possibly see how an actual recipient of a screener would be dumb enough to circulate something with their name on it.
There are many ways in which such a video could be "marked", without drawing attention from the viewer. One simple method is to vary the frames on which the "Do not distribute, blah blah blah" caption appears. This can be done automatically when the disc is produced, provides virtually unlimited unique combinations, and the process of matching a specific copy's "serial number" to the caption pattern is trivial. I can't say for sure, but I'm willing to bet that something like this was the method utilized to ID the "Something's Gotta Give" trailer. Other similar techniques might be something like inserting duplicates of specific frames. Such a technique would be virtually undetectable and if done in such a way that the effect is preserved by the encoding process it would be quite effective. -JT
The last few times ive been to the movies i've been seeing theese red splotches, they're on single frames through out the movie i figured they were the identification markers put in to track each copy, they were especialy distracting in the last Lord of the rings. If theese are the markers it seems like it would be simple enough to remove them, but maby too much for most pirates they hope.
It makes me sad that you don't have any faith at all in the older generation. Some cultures revere the elderly for their vast life experience and knowledge. You seek to discredit this man prejudiciously. I want to believe that, physical limitations aside, age does not prevent anyone from doing anything. This is clearly a cerebral activity rather than a physical one and I do not put it automatically past anyone's skill to be able to do this.
And if you are and American Citizen I suggest you read this.
Shame on you.
And as the 'foolish father' in 'Car Wash'. Oh, lord, what a hoot!!! I love this guy!!!
This guy plays italian mafia in movies and TV? More proof that the MOB is involved in pirating!
Pirated video is of low quality, something you wouldn't give to your mother to watch.
M.O.B. Industries supports bootleging.... You pay us a small fee, we'll give you quality media, what ever you like at low discount prices, cheeper then what it would cost you to buy the blank disks. Just visit our retail Fly By Night locations.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
There is a picture in the google cache.
I've seen screeners in used video stores. There's a piracy problem, alright, but it's from within the industry.
Now if you wrote some GPL software and someone went and modified it, then distributed it, but did not adhere to the specific requirements of the GPL guaranteeing your rights as the author, don't you think you would have a right to be pissed off? Do you think that might color your opinions of the people who ended up buying the software?
This individual violated a binding agreement, no less so than the GPL. Just because the MPAA is the wronged party doesn't make the wrong right.
More, if the demand for the fruits of such unlawful activity wasn't disproportionately high, the temptation would have been far less, and the whole issue likely wouldn't have occured.
And please don't try to ascribe people's unethical behaviour to some sort of protest over movie quality. If a movie is bad, you don't go see it, period. That is not license to obtain an unlawful copy. That kind of reasoning is childish, narcisistic, and anti-social. If all movies suck, you don't go to any, and you certainly do not obtain unlawful copies. If you want to send a message, fine, send the message. But when you obtain an unlawful copy of a movie the signal you are sending is not that the movie sucks, you are signalling your desire to watch/own the movie, while engaging in a childish reaction to the cost.
There is no moral reason to obtain unlawful copies of music, movies, software, what have you. The motive is greed pure and simple.
And the oft quoted argument of try and buy, is worse than useless. That kind of arrangement requires trust. Why should the MPAA or RIAA or anyone else trust you? If they could trust you the problem wouldn't be as pandemic as it is.
Having said all that, there are responsible people who could live within a reasonable try before buy setup, and who would honor their obligations, this post is not directed at you. This post is wasted effort, since it directed at the large group of internet toddlers who can't prosecute an argument, and use the internet primarily as a means to slake their insatiable greed.
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
Personally, I'd like to meet the guy. Maybe he could give me copies of future releases.
MPAA: Carmen, buddy, how are you today?
Carmen: Stools a lil loose today. My hip still...
MPAA: Wonderful, fantastic! How about we strike a little deal?
Carmen: Speak into my good ear?
MPAA: Look, we'll lay it on the line. We spent all this money on this technology breakthrough and haven't seen a return on it. We've pissed off thousands of millions of fans with our red dots and fancy ways and we need you.
Carmen: Where do I come in?
MPAA: Quite frankly, we need a fall man. You've played in the Mob, you should remember.
Carmen: Ah yes, I can act well!
MPAA: Yeah, great. But we need someone to get into trouble so we can show the pirates of America that we mean business! And these dots will annoy future generations!
Carmen: I get to play a pirate? eh?
MPAA: We need you, I mean, you've made 1 movie in the last 5 years. How about it. You are perfect for our part!
Carmen: Where do I sign?
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
ask not for whom the clue bell toles.
Which do you think is the most likely source of this video? Even an out of work actor can't be expected to keep every tape he is sent. Good money bets that it was either grabbed by someone at his agent's office or it was found in the trash.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
Mod away!
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
Now I don't know about you but the guy doesn't seem like the type to be leaking movies on the net. I would more likely believe it was a house keeper, grandson, or other person that did it. It is possible that he threw the screener away in the trash. I mean people have said the movie sucks (I haven't seen it personally), maybe the poor guy just threw away his copy and someone went through his garbage and got a screener dvd for their trouble. The agreement that he might have signed to be on the screener list may have said you can't distribute,copy or give it away but I would bet it didn't say you can't throw it in the trash.
> What do you get when you cross a pirate and a mafia don?
A Pirdon (Pardon). If you donated a lot of money to Clinton's campaign, that is!
What I've never understood is why the Academy doesn't get out of the screener business, if a studio wants to risk piracy, but ensure coverage of their limited exposure film shouldn't that be their decision. Probably all the voting members of the academy saw LotR, if they didn't they probably would not vote for it anyway, but Y tu mama, Tambien (was that last year?) might not have gotten the same coverage so if the distribtion/production company wants to take the chance that their movie will be pirated in to ensure that academy voters see it, let em.
The problem with this is that while here, it's a pretty low value piracy. Most people will buy the DVD when it comes out. Other areas will be selling DVD copies for a few bucks, that's the part of the market the studios really care about, right now. After broadband becomes purvasive, then the market will have some serious transition issues.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Awwwww man, I'm gonna beat this "Gigli" dead horse for mucho +1 funnay! Too bad it won't help my karma any...
actually, this is an old time loop that already began two years ago with the system of a down "steel this album" and stoke 9 "rip it off"..
...if you've seen Tom Hanks' "The money pit", and you remember the two asshole brothers you'll remember that Joe Montegna (sp?) played the carpenter brother and that this guy played the plumber brother. Joe drove the corvette that played "I've got to be me" and this guy drove the big old cadillac that played the same thing.
;)
You might remember him walking up to the house and asking Tom Hanks for a drink and Tom replies "Where are my manners, here it is... almost 9 o'clock in the morning..." they walk into the house and then you see Carmine come storming out of the house tossing back the drink and saying "Oh, so you're saving the good stuff..."
He looks a lot like an old version of the Simpson's "Fat Tony"
Loading...
So, are we getting to the point where people will have the legal responsibility to control their DVDs?
Who's going to make the lockboxes?
Forget DRM and other schemes that assume that all of us are thieves (guilty, with no chance to prove innocence).
Instead, add signatures (undetectable to the viewer/listener) to allow illegal copies to be tracked back, to make it easier to identify and charge the actual perpetrators.
That way, multimedia formats can be left open, thus respecting the "Fair Use" rights of honest customers.
Yes. And while the /. is doing the big 'we told you so' over unauthorized copying clearly starting with MPAA members, the MPAA is doing a little 'we told you so' of their own.
The MPAA powers-that-be don't want 'screener' copies sent out to academy voters, and this has actually been the subject of a couple court cases. The makers of small independent films--the makers of films that usually get limited release and not all voters can go see on their own, and the sort of artists the /. crowd usually supports--fought for the right to send tapes to the voters.
So, yes, one of the *free* copies of their films the MPAA didn't want to send out makes it onto the Internet, like they said it would, and now they are upset.
On another note, if these guys were working harder to make their movies better, the voters would go out to see the movies on their own (without expecting free copies) and they wouldn't be in this situation.
Um...the guys you want to work harder ARE the voters. Do you read every publication/attend every conference/review every new application/whatever analogy applies to your profession? If every movie opened on 3000 screens, this might not be an issue. But joe filmmaker shouldn't be shut out of the shot at some recognition from his peers just because not every member of the academy lives in New York or LA or across the street from one of the five little art houses he actually got to show his film.
Yes, 99.99% of the academy awards is Hollywood big shots jerking each other off about friggin' great they all are. Stop providing screeners to the voters and you're one step closer to ending that 0.01% that attempts to recognize the independent artist.
Who is it for Pete's sake?! How can you tease us like that?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
http://images.google.com/images?q=carmine+caridi&i e=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Sea rch
He was in Godfather III, Nuff Said
Help fight continental drift.
Don't compare copying to theft. When you steal a car, the person it used to belong to no longer has the use of that car. That is theft. When you make a copy of a movie, the person it used to belong to still has the use of it. That is not by any stretchg of the imagination the same thing as theft. True, they can't make money by selling it to you anymore, because you've already got it; but if you couldn't have got it free / cheap, then you probably would gone without rather than bought it.
..... Photocopiers, scanners and printers are everywhere, but absolutely nobody is putting pirate copies of popular newspapers on the internet, nor do street vendors sell poor-quality photocopies of bestselling novels. Why? Because where the printed word is concerned, it costs less to buy The Real Thing than to make a copy.
It's just standard free-market capitalism at work. Punters are prepared to risk a certain amount of money for a product without a guarantee, on the probability that the saving from not lining the pockets of the movie industry fatcats will be worth it. Independent distributors know this and aren't afraid to work it.
Take a look from a different angle for a while
Neglecting the amount it takes to pay for the performance being recorded, it costs less to manufacture stamped media than burned media. If the movie studios simply reduced their prices so as to compete directly with bootlegs, they would sell more product: after all, one generally has more recourse against a proper retail sale recorded through the books all the way, than some fly-by-night who has nothing to lose by letting customers down.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
What do you get when you cross a pirate and a mafia don?
More trouble than if you had just crossed the Pirate?
You find a horses head in Davey Jones' Locker?
You sleep with the fishes after walking the plank?
A drive-by cannoning or a float-by shooting?
It is the general practice of the more prominent piracy groups to remove these markings before release. All pirates know that these markings exist and it doesn't make sense to shut down future outlets. If the source gets caught then that means the source dries up. The pirates work very hard at keeping there sources anonymous. This goes for the markings in theatres as well. It is not difficult to remove the offending frames. My guess is that this was released by someone in the middle not really involved in wholesale piracy. I would be curious to see what copy of this movie they are talking about because every major piracy ring has already released it's own copy.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
The only image google had was a dead link so all that image is is the google thumbnail.
An alibi.
So it was his copy. What does that prove? He may have been terribly foolish and even horridly careless with safeguarding his copy of an otherwise unremarkable film.
Was he the only one with access to his copy of the movie? Did he sign his name in blood on various MPAA forms that he would keep the film on a chain around his neck while the film was in his possession unless he was watching that copy of the film?
My guess is that it was at least as likely to have been someone in his household or who works for/with him as it was him
who had been caught, you wouldn't have heard a word of this story. Carmine Caridi's a nobody who they can string up and make an example of.
I couldn't come up with any good ones, so I just left the post as a question.
two different characters in the same movie.
They show up in scenes that aren't too bright, where the picture is busy. They're maroon circles that are spaced as far apart as they are wide, about 1/60th of the print in diameter, in patterns resembling braille.
The MPAA has started using this system to "watermark" film. They use different patterns for reels they send of to different movie houses (so they can determine who released a telesynced version on the net). Presumably they used the same tech for the screener DVDs.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
THANK YOU TO ALL THE HOLLYWOOD INSIDERS FOR THE FREE FLICKS.
Everyone knew the Mob wanted in on entertainment as part of their move to legit businesses. First record companies and then film studios. The way recording artists and their works are "owned", the way the market is contolled and owned, the way alternatives are squashed, and even the "protection money" blank media must pay them, all of these things show who is really standing behind the curtain. Buying politicians, law makers and even law enforcement? The Mob wrote the book on it. That's why it's called "organized" crime.
True, they can't make money by selling it to you anymore, because you've already got it;
No, not true.
Just because I got a 'free' copy (which I used to preview), doesn't mean I wouldn't buy (or pay money to see) a legit copy at a reaonable price (if it's any good).
Take a look at Spider Man - one of the most pirated movies of all time (released two weeks before it opened in the theatres), set a box office record.
I had Family Guy VCDs I downloaded from Kazaa - I still bought the DVDs when they came out. (Family Guy is one of the top-selling DVDs around.)
Why is that when someone outside of Slashdots demographic gets busted crossing MPAA/RIAA/BSA there is a groundswell of 'Burn them at the stake' amongst the Slashdot populace? It seems like a more consistent approach would be 'don't bother them, don't bother us'? Maybe it's my excessive naivete and sense of fairplay and consistency getting my cross-threaded w/ the status quo again...
Actually, tracking down the leak is the right way to handle this.
Which leak - the Academy leak to the LA Times fingering Caridi, or the leak of the (lousy) movie onto the internet?
Clearly the Academy is full of internal holes. If the Academy couldn't keep the name of Caridi out of the press before it's full investigation, then how could the Academy keep thousands of videos from leaking?
This guy broke THE LAW and need to go to the same prison as Adrian Lamo ;) Both are criminals, right?
As an electrical engineer working for the manufacturer of Depends(R) let me stress to you that there is nothing funny about incontinence. Plus it pays my mortgage. :)
Actually, the production machines might surprise the average Slashdot techie. There's some slick sh*t in modern industrial control systems. You wouldn't believe how fast we make some of these products, and some of the technology involved (camera-based image acquisition and processing for defect detection, etc).
In the surely ensuing onslaught of incontinent product jokes, please include the (R) symbol after our product names, and remember, if it's not Kleenex(R) then it's only facial tissue. (Heh, you'd think I work in legal. But IANAL)
</tongue out of cheek>
was a bit of a stretch myself.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Simply change the color of some or multiple background items in the movie. Or something simpler. The specific color combination identifies the copy of the movie. The purple vase in this scene, the red shoes in that scene, the green hat in the other scene.. Look it up on the big chart, and voila, you have a name.
No need to make it complicated by relying on frame by frame specificness. Color of the background items will most likely survive a transfer to any given format. And it's not immediately obvious which items you need to look at, unless multiple copies get leaked and someone watches both of them and pays very close attention to them.
And it doesn't have to be color, that's just a simple example to give you an idea of how easy this is. Recolorizing something is pretty trivial to do in post processing anyway, but so are a lot of other things.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
For that matter, back in the day when music was distributed on grooved plates made out of vinyl, promos & prereleases were usually marked on the label.
I wonder why it took Hollywood so long.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Ummm. All of them? Screeners are the copies sent to Academy members to facilitate voting.
The more interesting rips are the ones that come from inside the studios. I have a DVD (purchased in China) that shows a letter-box format with reel/scene/take/time/frame numbers in the upper black band. It's also devoid of score (rest of voice/effects soundtrack is present). Fairly obvious who did it. Anyway, at the time I had never heard of this movie and bought a copy and then when I got home to Canada they were just starting to run the trailer for it during the "coming attractions" at the theatre.
.02
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Here is a fine example of how the RIAA and to a lesser extent the MPAA have gone horribly wrong in their pursuit of their own customers. Quite simply, the greatest damage to the industry comes from those who are on the inside. Not from their hard earned money spending customers.
I mean lets face it. Our country and culture is founded in the concepts of fair play. Most everyone I know respects the concept of paying for what you get. What a fair price is for a fair product. Those who "fileshare" are sick of being fleeced and do it mostly because of that. Come up with a fair price and the customers will return and the "insider" pirates will have no customers to sell to.
I am sick and tired of being accused of being a "pirate" because I want to save my DVD's to my HD. Or because I want to watch my DVD's in Linux. Or because I want to record HDTV just like I can regular TV with my VCR. Or because I want the convenience of being able to listen to any music I want anywhere I want. These are products I have already paid for. Fair use is clear in its benefits for the industry overall.
-- Mean People Suck
I know for a fact that one of the major Hollywood talents has leaked his share of movies.
When they did Star Trek V: The Worst Movie EVAR!!1, the producers were hardcore about protecting the scripts. Each one was coded in various ways (starbase numbers were the most popular for TNG scripts -- I think I was "Starbase 28" or something like that, Patrick was "Starbase 21" or something . . . I know they used our call sheet number in some way.) including stamping the name of the script's legitimate owner in HUGE semi-transparent letters across each page.
Being a super-nerd, I really wanted a copy of that script. Even though their Enterprise was less than 200 yards from my Enterprise, the STV:TWME!!1 producers wouldn't let me have one, so I bought a bootleg at a convention.
You know whose script was bootlegged and photocopied a zillion times? William Fucking Shatner's, that's who. Now, I seriously doubt that WFS wanted his script to get out, since he was the director and everything, but somehow it did.
It's easy to find out who was the rightful owner of a script, screener, or whatever . . . but determining exactly who was responsible for releasing it into the wild is a bit more difficult.
(And the script was as bad as the movie, for those of you keeping score at home.)
...and therefore his responsibility. Period. Remeber that word? Responsibility? It what real adults the the real world have to deal with.
and is ripped to VCD not SVCD so the quality is not that great
not that i know or anything
So what if the guy is 70 years old. That doesn't mean he can't operate a computer.
This guy is just as capable of committing a crime as anyone else here.
movies are just crappy enough to not purchase... but just barely good enough to spend time watching
This movie... I wouldn't spend the time on my 3M cable modem to download this for free.
Honestly, as soon as you see Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, you're already turning the page.
Oh wait...keanu....whoa.
Great song from a very great album but, a little bit to the side of mainstream for some. These new whipplesnappers don't make music the the old dogs used too.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
The real underlining problem in Hollywood is not whether someone somewhere is watching a movie in some format for free...
The real issue that Hollywood won't face is that their audience (the people who stand in line to give their money away) has stopped growing while the cost of producing the movies continues to grow unchecked every year.
Movies have become a saturated business. Last year the actual number of paid admissions actually fell 4% for the first time in since 1991 (according to NPR - the USA public radio network). Only half of the big blockbuster productions of last summer earned back their production and advertising costs from USA box office receipts. All the profit from Hollywood is coming from overseas ticket sales, video and DVD rentals, and syndication to other media.
And this is from a good year...
Hollywood has written off all the people over 30 years old in their demographic targetting for their product. If young adults decide to stop going to the movies and do other things with their disposable income, they will go bankrupt on their movie product. And young adults are turning away from television in record numbers, a bad sign for this industry.
All the while film budgets continue to go up and up. Each 150 million dollar movie is a giant three year gamble on the fickleness of the audience for the first two or three weeks after its release. Three or four big bombs like 'Gigli' in one season and the studio is history. Especially if the interest rates start to go up again.
DVD screeners is just a smoke-screen. It gives the industry something to collectively pretend is a problem without forcing them to acknowledge the real situation that they're in.
Although old people are old it doesn't necessarily mean that they are stupid and techonology hating. I have surely more high tech stuff than you, kid. And I do really own and buy new hot gadgets. And other old people do this, too. There are only two main differences between us:
Over 90 years and counting !
Does OAP stand for Old Ass Person?
How I hate to post anonymously... but gotta protect the innocent.
My girlfriend is a massage therapist. We live in Los Angeles County. Many of her clients are Hollywood People.
For Christmas gifts, several of her regulars gave her screener copies of movies. Evidently, this is common. That's what that big tiff was about when Valenti said that screener copies were no longer going to be released.
But look at the math. There are 5,816 voting members of the Academy. So you figure there are probably on the order of 6,000 screener copies of each film out there. Compare that to the number of copies sold; for argument's sake, let's use the first week DVD sales of Monsters, Inc (7 million) as a baseline for total sales.
So if all the screener copies get given to massage therapists, dog-sitters, etc, you have lost 0.08% of your sales. Obviously, this doesn't take into consideration people digitizing movies and putting 'em online -- this, of course, could be done regardless of screener copies by any shmoe who rents the DVD and rips it.
Shit. I think I had a point, but I don't remember what it was. Whatever. RIAA sux.
I was kind of thinking of a Bella Lugosi type thing, maybe old Carmen needs the extra cash for a fix, so he sells the tape...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Error in comparasion.
Stealing the Ford is an example of a physical item, which has to be made again (and incur the use of raw materials, and labour to create)
an electronic tune is not a physical item.
I understand the point you are trying to make, but you are using the wrong analogy.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
The 'sweet spot', eh? ;)
If they continue to harass and threaten their stars, fer chrissake, than I predict that soon no one will want the responsibilty of a "screener". And when that happens, the horrible pre-release hype for shitty movies will cease. And then, maybe, Hollywood will actually start to turn out some movies worth watching!
Or am I just dreaming?
Clearly Caridi didn't leak it. He must have thought the film was crap and threw it out, and then someone 'came across' it, and copied it...
/* This sig is disabled. Press CTRL-W to enable. Thankyou */
A dumb out-of-work actor gets caught letting his copy of a screener be the one that gets onto the 'net. I wouldn't call this a setback, I'd call this proof that this idea works.
I'd call it a career move. Think about it: suddenly a "dumb out-of-work actor" that most people couldn't pick out of a lineup is going to be the lead item on Entertainment Tonight. Of course, he'll get lots of sympathy since he probably doesn't even own a computer, so this is just a horrible mistake, yadda yadda yadda. I'm betting his agent did it.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
iff you take that initial 'free' automobile, and using star-trek technology make a million or so copies of it at no cost to the producer of the initial free car, then your analogy would make sense. as it stands, your analogy fails because it misses an important aspect.
Mu. the musician should not be upset
by the way, i do NOT download movies.(your last point falls on me)
but even if i DID, downloading movies is NOT illegal, breaching copyright is. get your laws straight.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Forcing people to sign NDA's aren't treating people as honest - its also somewhat amoral, and presumably anyone who can get away with it will summarily ignore it.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
http://images.google.com/images?q=Carmine+Caridi&i e=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Sea rch
What about the other 20%? Are you suggesting that the Academy defied the court order because 20% of the members didn't sign an Academy agreement?
Judge: You shall issue copies to the plantiffs.
Academy: If you don't sign our agreement, we'll defy the judge's order.
Not quite.
The CNN article doesn't include it, but when the judge issued the order, I didn't see anything about a written agreement being part of the decision when other news outlets carried the news of the decision a while back.
And if his grandson's babysitter, or his grandson's friends borrowed the copy while visiting, that means he didn't violate anything even if he did sign. It never left guy's house as far as he knew. In fact, a babysitter or house cleaner would have the perfect opportunity to slip the tape out of the vcr, remove it from the guy's house, copy it, and bring it back the next day, next weekend, whatever.
And as bad as the movie was, they should be paying people to download it. His babysitter did the studio a favor.
Then Snoop Dawg and Jerry stiller showed up to make sure it wasnt an AOL CD.
They said something about you'd be better off using a Academy Screen to finish your Fish art thingy, then AOL 9.0!
God, would I have loved to be on the set for the filming for that one.
The white couple laughing when snoop comes in is so fake it's completely hilarious. That and the fact that Snoop looks like he's about to throw down makes it priceless.
I wonder if they all smoked up after the shoot.
Fo rizzle!
www.tinyurl.com/exv3 ----my sad, sad existence
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
Or maybe the butler's kid decided to grab it.
Yet the guy gets his name slammed in the papers.. kinda a raw deal if he's not the actual perp. How hard do they have to protect the tape in their own home, a safe big enough for all the tapes they receive each year?
More than likely the old guy isn't sitting up all night "vripping" to hard disk, then going out and warchalk hunting for carrier, then wifi'ing it up to the net from his car. Some minion or crook probably nabbed it.
Try reading this screener's blog. DVD's left on doorsteps, arrive by regular mail, etc. Yep, the process is carefully audited alright.
I thought I saw somewhere that the hidden data on top of data illegal.
-- A cat is no trade for integrity!
Are we sure he wasn't in 'Pay it forward'?
You know what?
Dipshit.
Bullshit. I can't speak to this particular rip since I haven't seen it, but in the last two days I've watched leaked Academy Award screeners of two high-profile movies, one was a dvd to svcd transfer that looks and sounds as good as anything on broadcast tv, the other was a dvd image burned to a dvd-r minus the back two audio channels. Both looked and sounded great.
Beyond the "actors can do it, so can you" theme here, you couldn't hope for anything better than to start hitting the actors for violations, turning them against against the copyright movement itself. It's interesting to see that apparently some of the people who actually work in the industry don't think the problem is big enough to hurt THEIR paychecks.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Monty Python dispelled that notion long ago.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Why did you capitalize MOB like that? I spent far longer than I feel comfortable admitting trying to figure out what the acronym meant.
by flooding the market with perfect digital ripoffs, you've dropped the value of his product through the floor.
Old Age Pensioner
The unofficial
These guys are retarded. Anyone with a Usenet account could download the screener of 'Lost In Translation' over two weeks ago. I love how they suddenly think that only one film got out.
Stealing the Ford is an example of a physical item, which has to be made again (and incur the use of raw materials, and labour to create)
That was why I threw in the music analogy as well.
Although the idea that stealing a physical item is somehow drastically different is not one I agree with.
Both sides of that debate can be argued very well.
Casual Games/Downloads
Stealing implies that the original product is no longer available to the owners. It's more as if Ford sent out brochures, posters and specs of their latest-model 2004 roadster, along with instructions on how to build it from the ground up, and these got copied into the public domain.
Sure, Ford would be annoyed about the leak, but the original copy of the information pack would still be sitting around.
And no, downloading movies is not illegal. There are millions of movies of varying lengths available on millions of servers on the internet, and average people download them every day just by browsing to home pages.
In fact, there are even commercial cinematic releases which are not illegal to copy and circulate freely.
In other news, 95% of the world's population is not American. As far as we're concerned, the MPAA, RIAA and other US-based organisations can kiss our five billion, seven hundred million shiny metal asses.
So, youre gonna track it back to what? Some of us pay cash for our cds. Oh, now you want a picture id to buy a cd? Fuck that. Oh, and if you implement this, whats to stop someone from taking it after i sell it to a used cd store and putting it out over the internet? Or someone pulls it out of the trash? Ohh, so now were not allowed to sell these cds weve "bought" and can be sued if someone finds it in the trash? Fuck it, ill just download it, and send the musician 5$ from fairtunes.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
StockTheory: btw your picks for January are so far down-0.97%... not very impressive...
...but if you were privy to the techniques they used to encode the scripts, wouldn't the other actors have that knowledge too? If so then the script could be modified to make it appear that it came from some other source.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I HATE those damnable red dots (cap codes). They were incredibly distracting on Trilogy Tuesday and now they're everywhere! I sorely hope that they were not present on Somethings' Gotta Give, or else the studios will rejoice that their defiled prints actually caught someone. Watermarking? OK -- but NO RED DOTS!!! Hindus: Fear not, I'm on a crusade against patterns of dots, not single ones...
Make cheese not war 8:)
Let assume for one moment that these copies aren't being leaked by a single individual. According to the article:
The studios then sent screeners to thousands of other awards voters, including groups such as the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which presents the Golden Globes.
So it's not absurd to think there may be a pair of buddies that both received a copy, and want to distribute them. So all they have to do is rip both their copies, and then do a frame-by-frame (via software, of course) comparison of the two versions. Any method used to uniquely identify the copies should be readily visible. Now all they need do is tamper with it slightly. Say there is a stray frame inserted at a certain point in the film. If they simply move that frame to some other place in the movie then they have shifted the blame to someone else, which in this case could be an obscure 70 year old actor.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Anybody have a .torrent? ; )
Bullshit. I can't speak to this particular rip since I haven't seen it, but in the last two days I've watched leaked Academy Award screeners of two high-profile movies, one was a dvd to svcd transfer that looks and sounds as good as anything on broadcast tv, the other was a dvd image burned to a dvd-r minus the back two audio channels. Both looked and sounded great.
First of all, it was humor, making reference to 2600 claims that it was more cost effective to buy pirate DVDs on the street then make them your self.
Secondadly, pirated video varries... I've gotten some farscape AVIs while being high resolution high quality files... it was so clear you could see some rainbow interfearance.. so great high quality video noise and static... spiffy!
Third... well loosing the last two audio channels might be acceptable for pirate standards, it's not acceptable for a good bootleg.
Lastly... the scarcasm was to illistrate the diffrence between pirate video.... and bootlegged video. Pirate being distributed freely... bootlegged sold for a profit without paying royalties to the copyright holders.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
... and then there were none
I heard they're going after Robert Blake for giving away his screeners next. If they can't nail him for murder, he's gonna do some hard time for copyright infringement.
Carmine Caridi via images.google.com
States in I Am Spock that a strike of writers occurred.
It is a shame that the writers had to go on strike. Studios would pay writes minimum wage if they could. Writers would get half of the gross of a movie if they could. Ass both sides become more hungry during a strike, they both become more reasonable. Strikes are an unreasonable way of making people more reasonable. A more reasonable way would be to talk out their differences. Luckily, 99% of the time, writers and studios amicably negotiate new contracts -- the writers have not struck for over a decade.
Impeach Bush
No, I think this beats it.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
"You know whose script was bootlegged and photocopied a zillion times? William Fucking Shatner's, that's who."
"It's easy to find out who was the rightful owner of a script, screener, or whatever . . . but determining exactly who was responsible for releasing it into the wild is a bit more difficult."
KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!
I found this article funny after seeing my friend post this the other day: http://www.tehstyleguide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t =166
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
and it was one of the better films this year. Certainly the best romantic comedy this year. People who've been ripping on it (A) are not in the demographic/intended audience, (B) haven't seen it, and (C) are idiots.
It was a nice change of pace from the usual romcom with terrific writing and Nicholson and Keaton giving great performances.
Not if it was stolen out of his mail box.
The corporate media tells us:
and that
And nowhere in the article do they describe Caridi as a "pirate", nor can I find a mention of anyone in Hollywood willing to compare Caridi to the Boston Strangler. This despite their apparent assuredness that Caridi has illicitly distributed copies of this movie without permission. Apparently this kind of language is reserved for would-be customers.
Digital Citizen
No, that song, if such noise could even be called a song, sucked hard. And I am a Floyd fan. I used to play that song to specifically annoy my friends.
This guy has played both Sam Giancana and Frank Costello, and his early TV career smells of all-mobbed-up.
I think the Academy is probably rethinking its policy of bringing heat down on people willing to turn a buck selling their screener tapes.
Unfortunately, alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die is, ironically, dead.
"And it is a fact that lots of folks film movies in the theatres"
Its a fact that people set their penis on fire.
But not enough that anybody cares about.
Let face it, if a person will be satisfied with a crappy video copy of a movie screen, then they have issues far beyond piracy. They're doing it for a thrill or to show off.
People watching these are not a significant source of revenue loss; the quality simply isn't there. Did that mean they didn't lose anything? No. But not enough to pass stupid laws in Ohio aimed at preventing things that just don't happen.
I assume anyone spouting off nonsense like this is pushing a hidden agenda. I don't think you are...you don't appear to be smart enough.
However there are a boatload of others for critics, and most particularly for the distribution industry. There are physically too many screeners to uniquely tag them all, except for physical serial numbers on the DVD itself. These get 'defeated' by the first copy.
did anyone mention that this movie is hilarious? i would pay to watch this movie again. but hey now i can get it on dvd :)
I'm surprised the film indistry doesn't simply use the "canary trap" method: make each copy of the film unique somehow, and then you can trace back illegal copies.
I actually suspect they *may* be doing this already and just not saying anything. At a recent film, I saw an occaisional faint mark on the screen somewhere in a random location. They were definitely not the usual "cigarette burns" we're used to, and they weren't artifacts or glitches, either, because they were a uniform size and shape.
If they have started putting these in films, and if the locations and timing of each mark is different, then they could find out from which copy of the film an illegal copy came from.
The article makes it seem like it was some sort of classified document or trade secret or something and the world is going to end tomorrow.
Big deal. Some average movie out of about another 40,000 average movies is now available on the Internet.
I doubt Carmine Caridi is the one who ripped it and releasaed it onto the Internet. Thousands of these screeners are sent out to thousands of people. These people probably get sent 20 or 30 of these things each, and these people also have many friends who probably have access to them.
do you actually think people watch the crappy movies they download? harharhar
I also have bought Officially Sanctioned copies of material that I previously owned in Independently Distributed form -- DVDs of stuff I taped off the telly, CDs of music I taped from other people's LPs, and so forth. So ownership of an Independent copy does not always preclude purchase of an Official one.
The thing you and I both know is, some DVDs are not worth paying for -- I for one would rather have a few tens of **** / ***** movies in my collection than a few hundred ** / *** ones. I simply won't buy a movie on DVD unless I know I'm going to watch it several times. But all the movie industry wants is for people to throw money at them.
And, in some cases, favourable Independent previews have been the sole reason for buying an Official copy.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I believe Steamboat Willy was in fact the third Mickey Mouse film produced. It was however the first to be shown in public.
/factnazi
The other two films were Galloping Goucho and Airplane Crazy.
Enough said.
Screeners are only a problem because the Movie Industry is too lazy to make custom copies of each screener they send out, watermarked/stamped/steganized with an individual identifier which can finger the perpetrator of the deed.
Hint, Mr. Movie Mogul: Mass Production == DEATH.
Not that I agree with it, but man it sure seems like the Movie Industry is Fucking Stupid sometimes. Don't they know anything about technology?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
One day soon, we'll all have personally identifiable copies. Watch the handling of this, and pay particular attention to the assumptions of guilt and balance of probability arguments.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I know that you didn't make this accusation, but one frequently attached to the growing cost of movies is that "special effects are emphasized over plot," often with people quoting older movies which only cost a few million to make, but were perfectly alright. In probably a good 50-75% (97.2% of statistics are made up on the spot) of those cases, I wonder how long ago these people actually saw the movie in question. We have become accustomed to special effects being slick, of the veneer of reality being pretty darn close to flawless. At one point, people could use cardboard rocks and the same sound stage over and over again for a movie, but today, we're not quite as ready to suspend that belief because we know they can do better. As example, note how many of the "movie goofs" have become technical things, "When Rod lifts the revolver, you can tell by the shape of the stock that it's the Eagle, only produced after 1775, inexcusable in a movie set in 1774." *wry grin* Ok, there's my rant for the day. And I'll freely admit that there are a lot of well done low-budget movies. They're generally also the ones without big name actors though, so they often miss notice.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
"Oh, and the encoding methods weren't exactly common knowledge. I was the only TNG cast member who read 2600 and TAP, if you get my drift."
:)
Oh this is fantastic, I knew I was right! Back in Middle school, a teacher discovered my friends and I hacking around the school network (Full root, and Admin accounts at 12 years old, w00t!).
My teacher tried to use Star Trek as a moral argument, and said that starfleet officers would never hack into someones computer. I said that Ensign Crusher would, and he gave me a detention!
But only now, after learning that Mr. Crusher was reading the same issues of 2600 I was, do I know the full injustice done to me
Coded Anti-Piracy (CAP) Code.
See an example here:
http://static.vcdquality.com/sample/id18919.jpg
I think we should start a campaign called "Ditch The Dots" (you heard it here first).
Movie review sites and other related areas should band together, design a logo or some such using the dot style, and paste it everywhere. Make flyers and post them near cinemas. Boycott movies. Whatever it takes to make the cretins that put them in there (burned in with a laser which is why anamorphic prints' dots look stretched) get rid of them, as they serve no purpose to the audience except to piss them off when they place them in the most conspicuous frames, often right on top of foreheads or other large, light coloured areas in a frame, pulling you right out of the immersive experience.
I personally am not going to the cinema this year until I know my experience is no longer going to be ruined by these dots. I'll wait the extra month or two until it reaches DVD, thanks.
Visceral Psyche Films
....is that whilst a Ford costs hell of a lot of money to reproduce, a digital copy of a movie costs basically zero to reproduce (yes, I know that technically you take up hard drive space, put it on DVDR etc, but it's virtually zero).
When something can be essentially copied at zero cost, should it still require people to pay $xx for it?
Visceral Psyche Films
This has got to be the most buzz Caridi has received in a long time. His PR people must be leaking these screeners on purpose!
i've dropped the price of the product through the floor.
value != price.
perfectly digital things are not valueless. they are digital, for a start, and that's value right there.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Authorities Arrest Chicago-Area Man in Movie-Piracy Case
...
Thursday January 22, 10:23 pm ET
By Sarah McBride, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
LOS ANGELES -- In a high-profile strike against online movie piracy, federal authorities Thursday arrested and charged a Chicago-area man with copyright infringement after he allegedly copied and distributed videotapes he allegedly obtained from a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and illegal interception of a satellite signal.
According to an affidavit filed by a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, William Russell Sprague of Homewood, Ill., told investigators that over the past few years, he received approximately 60 videotapes of movies under consideration for Hollywood awards from actor and academy member Carmine Caridi, 70. Mr. Sprague told authorities that he copied the movies and distributed them to family and friends.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?