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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?"
>> 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.
in Godfather II (Carmine Rosato) and Godfather III (Albert Volpe) according to the IMDB. Coppola must be so embarrassed now.
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?
Yes, as the article linked-to says. It also mentions that only 80% of voters actually signed and returned the forms -- but apparently the other 20% got to vote anyway. So the whole thing doesn't really seem to be taken seriously.
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.
Or maybe he just dumped it in his trash after watching it (or before), and someone picked it up from there.
He gives his screen copies to his personal assistant when he's done with them. The assistant then copies them to VCD and hands them out to his friends. Who knows where these end up?
Actually, watermarking and Palladium are very different. The watermarking that was used to identify the source of the leak doesn't limit the use or the distribution of the movie at all -- it just allows them to determine the source of the leak. Since everyone who receives a pre-release copy of a movie has a signed NDA, it's (IMO) fair for the movie studios to use technology to determine who broke their NDA, and take corrective action afterwards.
Palladium, on the other hand, has the opposite goal -- it's goal is to prevent anyone from being able to do anything that the content creater doesn't want to have happen. So rather than treating people as honest and catching the exceptions, it treats everyone as a potential criminal.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
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.)