MPAA Bans Academy Awards Screeners

[dphirschler]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/01/1064988265554.html

http://www.local6.com/entertainment/2523385/detail.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/01/movies/01OSCA.html?ex=1065585600&en=e5a4c06722648e39...partner=GOOGLE

[lordsmurf]

Nobody cares who wins those awards anyway. As long as a bad movie makes money, the studios still consider it good.

[Metaluna]

"Executives at some independent companies said privately that the studios were less interested in the piracy issue than in undercutting independent film companies who have consistently won Oscars recently."

You mean the MPAA might be nothing more than a mouthpiece for a few large greedy studios? Holy cow!!!

[The village idiot]

"Wherever I can find a piracy hole in the dyke, I have to put a cork in it," says the MPAA's president and chief executive, Jack Valenti, who is trying to prevent the movie business from suffering the business-crippling thievery that has devastated record labels.

Because Hollywood thrives on self-entitlement, the news is particularly painful for the thousands of well-heeled industry types who crave the free movies as much as the private jets and the assigned parking.

The DVDs and videos are frequently shipped just as - and, sometimes, before - the films debut in theatres, which is why the MPAA considers these copies a high-profile target in its campaign against piracy, which costs Hollywood an estimated $US3.5 billion ($5.14 billion) annually.

Maybe making garbage movies is what is really hurting them! You don't see the Lord of the Rings people crying about their sales do you? And I know those movies are very hot among the pirates! And most of the pirates own at least 1 copy of the DVD, and many went to the theater to see it too. It would surprise me if they are actually losing more than $10,000 in DVD sales to piracy. And they certainly are only losing a few thousand box office dollars for that series of movie. Then you get garbage like the Hulk. Was it worth $8 at the box office, is it worth $8 for the DVD, in my opinion it osn't worth a $3 pay per view or rental!

"What's going on in the music business will happen to us unless we start now," said Valenti, who previously had played down the piracy of awards screeners. "It will make Hollywood a desert."

It already is a desert, that's why they are there! It doesn't rain on your set in the damn desert! What a moron!

[Gazorgan]

It would be a simple matter (although time consuming and expensive), to make the DVD Screeners all slightly different. Simpley remove/add a frame at certain key points. Then the MPAA can d/l the pirated version before the opening, arrest the critic, and sue the newspaper out of business.

Very simple, so what's the problem? They don't want to spend the $200k extra to catch a $20/hour movie critic, or they don't want to piss off an Academy member who doesn't pay attention to his son?

I guess it's back to SVHS screeners :P

[Gees]

Maybe those self-destructing 48 hour discs? :cD

[Gazorgan]

I have personally seen some of these screener disks. Actually a pile of them ontop of a home DVDplayer(more tapes that DVD's). The screeners for reviewers aren't the issue, since they are mostly for movies they don't want to go see.

Academy screeners, that's another issue. I really don't think the pirated versions of Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers hurt Movie attendance. No DVDplayer is going to compare to stadium seeting with DTS Audio.

The hulk did horribly because it was a dark comic style movie (much like Daredevil did horrible), not because you can d/l pirated versions. Hollywood needs to understand that movies bomb because they suck, not because they are pirated.

Side Note: Never seen anything remotely resembling J-Lo's and BenAfflacks movie Gigilo :P

[i am x]

Hollywood needs to understand that movies bomb because they suck, not because they are pirated.

Most beautifully stated.

[musher70]

Hell, you want one of those "screeners"
just go to Ebay...someone will leak em there

[mysticgohan17]

my sources () tell me a screener of gigli was leaked earlier today, and we know that isnt up for any awards praising its artistic merit. so if you're looking for crap movies that have no chance of winning any awards, you'll be ok