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?"

Comments

possible picture

[elykyllek]

Here's a possible picture of him from images.google.com
Carmine Caridi

Re:I want an apology

[LostCluster]

100% of screeners that wind up on the 'net are leaked by Academy members... they're the only ones who are authorized to have them to begin with.

Re:Irony at it's best

[EricWright]

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.

Re:I want an apology

[el-spectre]

No, screeners have always been thought to be leaked from within (who else has 'em?).

Downloaders are consuming, not producing. And it is a fact that lots of folks film movies in the theatres. The fact that an actor leaked a trailer doesn't change that.

Re:Automatic guilt?

[LostCluster]

Is there something that people sign when they receive a screener which says that if the screener shows up on the net they are somehow liable?

Yep. RTFA.

Screeners are DVDs/tapes of movies that are still in theaters given to Academy Members so that they're able to see all of the films nominated so that they can properly vote for the Oscar awards.

While there's no proof that he actually did the encoding, there is proof that it was his copy of the movie that was incoded rather than anybody else's. It becomes a chain-of-custody issue from here on. I assume there was a point that there was a tamper-evident seal placed around the package, and if somebody had broken that seal in the mail process he should have called in right away.

Yeah, not quite automatic proof... but clearly a reason to look into the guy's connection because it sure seems likely he at least gave his copy away which would be a violation of his contract...

Actually, None.

[cribcage]

I wonder how many of the other screeners were "released" by other Academy members.

According to the LA Times story, none.

Any number of movies eligible for Oscar nominations can be found on Internet downloading sites. But the academy said "Something's Gotta Give" marked the first time a so-called screener sent to an Oscar voter had been made available for illegal copying.

Re:Actually, None.

[laird]

"the academy said "Something's Gotta Give" marked the first time a so-called screener sent to an Oscar voter had been made available for illegal copying"

There have certainly been screeners circulateddigitally before, so perhaps there's some subtle distinction here. Perhaps they're differentiating between the "screeners" sent to Oscar voters and the "screeners" sent to reviewers, etc., to promote the movies?

The canary trap...

[revery]

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.

Picture from the google cache.

[dj701]

There is a picture in the google cache.

Re:I, here and now, define the term....

[bay43270]

VEEEERY small picture

Which leak?

[ljavelin]

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?

Re:I want an apology

[milkman_matt]

100% of screeners that wind up on the 'net are leaked by Academy members... they're the only ones who are authorized to have them to begin with.

I've got several screeners, and i'm not a member of the academy. These are perfectly legit too. When I worked at Blockbuster Video all of the higher-ups, the District Managers and Regional Managers got weekly (usually several a week) shipments of this stuff... I was working at a Blockbuster right nextdoor to the Regional Office, they used to bring the screeners over so that the employees of my store would be able to pass them around and we'd all get to watch them then return them to the office. Any one of these people could have duped any one of these tapes and uploaded them if they wanted to. A side note to this, I haven't worked there for several years, and I think they'd stopped doing this shortly after I quit. As to how I aquired so many copies, I had to work at that office one week, they gave me the screeners that came through that week, and I ended up with about 10 of 'em. Fortunately it was a good week for releases. :)

-matt

Re:I want an apology

[Teancom]

Actually, when I worked at Alberson's headquarters, on Saturdays we would head up to the room where they kept all the screeners of movies that the various companies wanted us to buy (in order to rent out at our stores). There were a crap-load of them (technical term) and all new releases. We could easily have taken them home with us (I did a couple times, though I brought them back) and ripped them there. So no, Academy members *aren't* the only ones who get them.

Just so you know...

Re:Grow up.

[i_r_sensitive]

I have to apologize, rereading, I see how you could perceive (mostly from my careless use of pronouns) that I was directing this at you specifically, not so. I am however pointing the finger at those who do abuse the system. Again I apologize, since the cant of my post was easily misconstrued.

For what it is worth, I do believe you when you tell me that you don't engage in these practices, and do pay for your entertainment media. I not only believe that, I laud you for it.

But, I think there are some misconceptions here. The article plainly states that the "screeners" were preceeded by an agreement, or contract, if you will, which specified the conditions under which the screener would be provided, it further stipulated psecific and possible penalties for contravening that contract. While I agree that contract law does not supercede other forms of law, nothing specified as being in contract contravenes any established body of law, meaning the contract is valid and enforceable, correct? After all, AFAIK there is no law preventing a Movie company from providing a free copy of a product, provided the recipient abided by the terms under which such a copy would be made available. Those terms specifically prevented the disposal of the product in the fashion it was disposed, such a requirement is not unlawful, nor is it even inconsistent with accepted practice in contract law. In point of fact, it is less onerous in it's requirements than the GPL in many ways. But no-one (except SCO) pretends that the GPL is in any way unenforceable or invalid.

As for radio, tv stations, etc. etc. etc. broadcasting those materials, that is hardly the same thing. True, those broadcast are also made under the aegis of contracts, and those contracts also spell out acceptable use of the materials, and penalties for not abiding by the terms of the contract. The specifics are very different, however. The contracts entered into by Radio and TV stations specifically grant them the rights to broadcast such materials, in return for significantly higher costs, and more onerous auditing procedures. Still contracts, still the copyright holder granting permission for specific use, under specific conditions, the use and conditions are different, the validity of the contract is not.

I wouldn;t necessarily say that the practice of sending these screeners out is unethical. In fact, if anything it is a levelling mechnism whereby the smaller companies can get their product fair attention fromt he body of judges, something they might not get otherwise. This was why the MPAA allowed the screeners to go out after initially banning them (mostly due to the (correct) apprehension that these could be a source for pirated materials on the 'net.)

Again, I apologize for what must have seemed like a personal attack on you. The atack was personal, but aimed at the real offenders.

As a side ha-ha, I think it's absolutely hilarious that my orignal post gets modded up, while the follow up post, aknowledging the original as a troll, gets modded down as flamebait...

Re:I want an apology

[LostCluster]

Note that all of these "When I worked for X..." stories are dated quite in the past. Albertson's isn't getting those screener tapes anymore, that's a crackdown that happened a couple years ago. Academy members are the only ones left, so are the only ones who could possibly have leaked a current movie's screener.

Re:Possible Marking Technique

[dubbayu_d_40]

Dolby buys Cinea: cinea.com/press/press_release_09242003.htm Cinea is established by ex-DIVX employees: cinea.com/company/ Cinea/DIVX developed a video water marking technology: cinea.com/approach/#

Re:Not to defend Shatner...

[CleverNickName]

...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.

Well, I don't think WFS needs to be defended. I wasn't accusing him of anything, so if it came off that way, allow me to correct myself.

*correct*

As to your suggestion, I suppose it's technically possible, though why anyone would want to go to the extreme lengths to falsify a script's ID is beyond me. We're talking about numerical codes on random pages, and the actor's (or sometimes character's) name stamped, by hand, across the center of every single page. If you watch the extended behind the scenes features on the LOTR DVDs, you can see them reading their sides, and each page is stamped "Sam" or "Frodo" or "Gollum," etc. (goddamn I'd do just about anything to get one of those! /geek)

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.

Re:Leaking of Scripts, etc.

[CleverNickName]

Oh dear god.

Worst Star Trek film ever. I should have been clear about that. I mean, my piles of shit "The Curse" and "Deep Core 2000" are significantly worse than even the worst of Star Trek, including the first two seasons of Voyager.

So, foreach "STV:TWME" in (@mypost)
{"STV:TESTME11!"}

. . . Or something like that. I reverse polarity on stuff. I'm not a programmer. I'm more of a hardware guy.