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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?"
"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)
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 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.
-T
Here's a possible picture of him from images.google.com
Carmine Caridi
>> 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.
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
[the sound of imdb vicariously crashing as people try to figure out who Carmine Caridi is...]
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."
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
There's such a big deal made over it because it affects rich people.
God spoke to me
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
For once, a copy-protection technology that I don't think anybody can argue with...
I'll argue, and it echoes sentiment that others have expressed in this thread: How do we know he did it? He's 70 years old and not exactly the key demographic for uploading/digitizing movies. Maybe one of his kids watched it and did it (I used to watch screen copies with my college roommate who's dad was in the Academy), or perhaps someone along the process (encoders, mailers, distributors) took 2 hours and did it.
The only proof is that a leaked copy with this guy's name on it is on the internet. We have no proof that he had anything to do with it being there.
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
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.
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!
There's some slick sh*t in modern industrial control systems
;)
Perhaps you guys need to be wearing some of your own products to keep that stuff out of the equipment...
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.)
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...
...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.
/geek)
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!
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, 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