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Oscar Screener Ban to be Revoked for Academy Members 189

Posted by CowboyNeal from the saner-solutions dept.
bigjocker writes "Yahoo is reporting that the ban to distribute screeners copies will be revoked. The bad news is that only members of the Academy will receive them." It's still unclear how this will affect events such as the Golden Globe awards. According to the article, several critics' organisations have yet to decide their reaction. I'm guessing that at the least, Academy members are pleased to know they won't have to find a theatre to screen award nominees.
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Oscar Screener Ban to be Revoked for Academy Members More

Oscar Screener Ban to be Revoked for Academy Members

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  • Bad News? (Score:5, Funny)

    by WEFUNK ( 471506 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:39PM (#7284791) Homepage
    The bad news is that only members of the Academy will receive them."

    Don't feel so bad, I know this academy member who always makes a few copies for his friends...

  • Academy Members Spared (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:41PM (#7284810)
    shouldn't that read "academy members will be pleazed to know that they too wont have to get on Kazaa to see the movies?"
  • Thank God the poor Academy members have been spared the torture of going to public theaters!

    Imagine how hard it would be to judge moving dramas with the welfare mother 2 rows behind them, yelling "callete! callete!" at her 11 screaming kids. Not to mention the fat redneck guy in the row in front of you, taking up 2 seats (exposed butt-crack nested on the unmoveable arm rest). How could anyone enjoy a movie like that?

    Actually, this experience seems familiar...

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Imagine the horror (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:53PM (#7284946)
      Yeah, and they're also spared having to decide what to vote for when many of the movies under consideration can't be seen in a movie theater within hundreds of miles of where they live.

      There are more catagories than "Best Big Stupid Blockbuster."

      A lot of Academy members are just working shlubs too. Wives, kids, toilets that don't flush but roofs that do. They don't necessarily have time to go traipsing around looking for obscure films that even the art houses stopped showing months ago, but they can pop a DVD in the player a few nights a week after getting the kiddies to bed.

      Not distributing screeners is not only dumb, it's pointless for avoiding piracy. Hell, most of the stuff is in the wild already.

      KFG

    • Quentin Tarantino (Score:4, Interesting)

      by A1miras ( 595087 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @05:17PM (#7285155) Homepage
      I was listening to a morning show in LA when Quentin Tarantino was on, and I thought he made an interesting point. He basically said that it hasn't been all that long that people have been receiving dvd screeners. When they asked for a copy of Pulp Fiction he was greatly insulted. He said something to the effect of "Are you kidding me? IT'S STILL IN THE F-ING THEATRES. I don't want him sitting at home doing laundry and having his kids asking him to drive them to their friends house while John Trovolta's blowing some guys head off."

      Please note that's a very rough translation from memory.
      • going to a theater may be great for a major picture, but what about one that would play at an arthouse? Not all cities are able to support arthouses. I live in Albany, and we have one. It's at least an hour drive to the next closest one. I had a friend who had to drive 2 hours both ways to see Memento back in 2001.

        Not all academy members live in L.A. or New York City.

      • I've gone from seeing maybe fifty feature films a year (in the mid-to-late 1990's) in theatres to seeing maybe three features in theatres this year.

        There have been two main causes of this shift:
        1) the ever-increasing admission price for the theatre that is much greater than the inflation rate.
        2) the explosion in availablity of DVDs. They have great sound, sharp images, multiple languages and subtitles, and production commentary.

        Two forces - one pulling me out of the theatres and the other dra
  • What about critics who aren't members of the academy? Having a small, closed group of people be the only ones with access to screeners isn't much of a solution.
  • I know this has been mentioned before but ill repeat it because I believe it to be true. No one will never, repeat NEVER, stop piracy. The solution is to make the movies (or any product for that matter) actually worth paying for. Most movies have gone up in price (as have the actors pricetags) and down in quality. People are tired of it. Even if youre going to keep making crappy movies, at least show some other cool stuff in the theaters (maybe a behind the scenes type of thing for 30 mins after the mo
    • No, the solution to piracy of movies is to produce a product so bad that people will bitch if they actually watched it (I mean ask for their TIME as well as their money). Try to cram both of the least worst scenes into the trailer so people will not think that it is total garbage, and make money off of the first weekend only.

      When it does come out, selectivly paraphrase quotes (and misquotes), such as:

      "This is this biggest (thing) to hit the movie screen ever."
      "This movie should not be tossed aside li

  • You just gotta wonder (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JWW ( 79176 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:44PM (#7284844)
    What they are going to say when movies are leaked now? It will happen.

    The movie industry will have to fess up that some of the most respected people in their industry are in fact IP theives. Just like they want to paint everyone else to be. It'll be fun to watch.
    • They will do the dance of the hypocrite.

      Dance Limbaugh Dance.
    • >What they are going to say when movies are
      >leaked now? It will happen.

      It will be funny, too. I'm willing to bet the "leaker" turns out not only to be an insider, but one that nobody will have the guts to criticize (much less, prosecute.)

      I think the fact that zero-day (or even negative) warez'd movies are available AT ALL, is an indicator of dissent within the ranks of the industry.

      I'd have a good laugh if it turned out the whole thing was Valenti's henchmen playing both sides against the middle,
    • What they are going to say when movies are leaked now?

      Told ya!

  • They should watermark them. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:45PM (#7284856) Journal
    The accademy should (quietly) distribute watermarked copies - with individual watermarks - to the members - and then take action against the responsible member(s) if the material ends up on the black market.

    It's the height of hypocracy to swat at unauthorized copiers among the customer base in such a way as to create massive colateral damage among non-violators while simultaneously giving the industry insiders immunity.

    • Re:They should watermark them. (Score:5, Informative)

      by cK-Gunslinger ( 443452 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:52PM (#7284930) Journal
      What a great idea and insightful idea!

      From the article (emphasis mine):

      The studios reportedly agreed to send out VHS screeners (recipients previously had a choice between VHS and DVD) encrypted with a special security code traceable to individual Academy members. (Such a move will, presumably, keep the likes of Steven Spielberg (news) from cranking out a few extra copies and selling them on eBay.)
      • The studios reportedly agreed to send out VHS screeners (recipients previously had a choice between VHS and DVD) encrypted with a special security code traceable to individual Academy members.

        I guess that'll teach me to RTFA. B-)
      • I tend to think that a "special security code" would make the copy more valuable, as it becomes a one of a kind (or a knockoff of a one of a kind).

        I'd pay good money for a screener of Jurassic Park verifiably sent to Stephen Spielberg.

    • They've already tried this and they just blur out the codes. You can't really put an image across the screen that takes away from the visual effect of the film, and by the same token, you don't want tones on the audio track that take away from the soundstage. Any watermark would simply be useless in the longrun.
      • Lets see...
        The Blur is 5 minutes and 30 seconds into the movie, that means that member X leaked this film...

        I guess you could remove a few frames to change the time stamp though =/
        but if the watermarks are placed at 5,8,10 etc minute intervals it may be hard to remove.

        • Lets see...
          The Blur is 5 minutes and 30 seconds into the movie, that means that member X leaked this film...

          I guess you could remove a few frames to change the time stamp though =/
          but if the watermarks are placed at 5,8,10 etc minute intervals it may be hard to remove.

          Read this [howstuffworks.com]

          A common misconception is that there are just these ~10 'Academy Gods' that grant worthiness to movies. The academy is a semi-diverse group of over 5000 members in the film-making industry.
      • You can't really put an image across the screen that takes away from the visual effect of the film, and by the same token, you don't want tones on the audio track that take away from the soundstage. Any watermark would simply be useless in the longrun.

        An "image"? You only need to change the shade of ONE pixel in the entire movie to make a unique watermark. In that situation, hackers will be able to reconstruct the original movie if they have access to multiple watermarked copies of the same movie.

        So

    • The accademy should (quietly) distribute watermarked copies - with individual watermarks - to the members

      The problem is that it is very costly to make individualized discs rather than mass-produced copies. That would be fine if there were a handful of members, but AFAIK there are thousands of Academy members.
    • Tell me why they are not already watermarked.
      It would not be so hard to watermark a seperate serialnumber into each copy sent out - there is a very limited number of screeners right? under 1000?

      it cannot be that hard to do.

      Then you bust the screeners who screw you.
      Done.
      • They can't put it on the subtitle/angle tracks or they'd just get removed during the rip. Which only leaves actual messing with the MPEG encoded video.

        I suppose someone could create a MPG "tweaker" to just decompress/watermark/recompress select blocks on the encoded files to serialize them, but it would be expensive, and would mean DVD-R'ing every disc (compatibility issues, far more expensive production)

        Interestingly enough, I saw "Kill Bill" last night, and although I really enjoyed the movie, Miramax'
  • Academy members are pleased to know they won't have to find a theatre to screen award nominees.

    They can always see my friend Rob who runs his business out of a Ryder van on 4th and D. He's planning on having an Academy member special.

  • At least... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkBlackFox ( 643814 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:50PM (#7284918)
    At least the MPAA is taking a more consumer-friendly approach to it's piracy problem. No matter what they do, I applaud them for not caving in to the level of the RIAA by sending supoenas to their consumer base.
    • Uh, did you see the article about the "Broadcast Flag"? (If not, i'm sure CmdrTaco will repost it in a few hours ;)

      So far movie downloads haven't "caused" as much of a "problem" as music downloads have. The MPAA is a few steps behind the RIAA because online movie trading is still a relatively small "problem" (primarily, they say, because of limited bandwidth... even over a cablemodem, it could take, perhaps, days to download a movie, or so i've heard or whatever).

      The MPAA is trying to "nip it in the bud
      • > the first showing of the Matrix 3, even though I fully expect it to suck.. no way those guys can nail it 3 times!

        Hmmm... Well, considering the quality of the second movie, we just have to hope that they can nail it twice out of three.

  • "The bad news?" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spellcheckur ( 253528 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:51PM (#7284925)
    "The bad news..."

    Seriously?

    Really, how is this bad news for anyone who isn't trying to steal content? I'm a strong advocate of being able to backup and/or copy things that I have a legal right to. I'm also a strong opponent of "tools" like the DMCA that use corporate fear to try to over-legislate or get rid of technology because it *could be* used to break the law.

    But restricting screeners to academy members is only "bad news" if you were hoping that someone in the wider distribution list was going to copy the movies and distribute.

    Espousing piracy significantly weakens an anti-MPAA stance. In fact, it plays right into the pro-MPAA argument saying "the only reason people want the ability to copy is so they can pirate."

    If you're against the MPAA's position on heavy-handed anti-technology legislation, I'm with you. If you're only in it because you want to steal some stuff... coun't me out.

    • you took the words right out of my mouth. every comment made like that completely invalidates a few dozen articles relating to corporations are stripping us of our personal freedoms.

    • Re:"The bad news?" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jimmcq ( 88033 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @05:19PM (#7285174) Journal
      Really, how is this bad news for anyone who isn't trying to steal content?

      For a lot of independant films (or just about any film that doesn't come from one of the major mega-corporate studios) the screeners are just about the only way that they get seen by the Academy members. So, this is really bad news for indpendant film makers whom have won a lot of awards in the past because screeners allowed more voters to actually see their films.
      • Yes, but as the article (and, indeed the summary) indicates... the news here is that the screener ban has been lifted. Screeners ARE going to go out, but only to academy members.

        If it's too much effort to read the article, at least read the summary. If it's too much effort to read the summary, don't post.

      • But what happens when the movie goes to DVD? How about the fact that most of these are foreign films that would have gotten popular through other channels long before reaching US shores and having a shot at an American award?

        This doesn't matter. They will just make it harder to pirate. The end result, the films will bring on as much of a view base as they did before -- they just won't be as popular as quickly with the mainstream. Fine by me!

        You warez kiddies wear too thin a veil in this department.

        • But what happens when the movie goes to DVD?

          How many independent films go to DVD at all? Without an Academy nomination, how many fewer will go to DVD?

          • They all do. When a film fails in a theater, somtimes this is the only way to generate any revenue.

            A lot of films flop simply because they have no advertising, or bad advertising. Once it hits the local Blockbuster, then it has years to recoup the losses.

            Same goes with independent films..
      • For a lot of independant films (or just about any film that doesn't come from one of the major mega-corporate studios) the screeners are just about the only way that they get seen by the Academy members.

        Ideally, any Academy member who has not seen every nominee should abstain from voting. Thus, the presence or absence screener DVDs would affect the number of members voting, but not the actual decision except in rare cases. In this ideal world, the problem you point out doesn't really exist.

        The problem

  • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:57PM (#7284986)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Oh no! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 )

    I'm guessing that at the least, Academy members are pleased to know they won't have to find a theatre to screen award nominees.

    God forbid the people voting on the pictures should have to see them in the environment they were intended to be viewed in. :) Yeah, I know that it's not feasible for every Academy member to see every movie that's nominated in every category... I suppose one solution would be that members would only vote on categories in which they HAD seen all the nominated films. Dunno how y

    • Re:Oh no! (Score:2, Informative)

      by spellcheckur ( 253528 )
      Academy voters are already required to vote only in categories in which they've seen all the films. That's what the purpose of screeners (or private screenings) is for: to level the playing field.

      Michael Moore made a huge deal about it last year when he thought he wouldn't win Best Documentary. "Bowling for Columbine" was for a mainstream audience, and not enough "mainstream" voters had seen the others in his category.

      As for enforcement on the policy... no idea.

    • Why not have academy members votes be weighted based upon which movie they have seen? If, for example, Finding Nemo recieved 40% of the vote of the 1,000 members registered as having seen it, it still could lose against the 50% vote given by the 150 members who saw "Whale Rider."

      Such a scheme sounds more fair, if it isn't possible to see a movie in the intended format.

  • Great news for independant films. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gatekeep ( 122108 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @05:01PM (#7285014)
    Roger Ebert wrote a column [suntimes.com] about this when the decision to ban screeners was announced. I tend to agree with most of his points, and can't wait to see what he says about this latest turn of events. We should all be happy, and not because this likely means more pirated pre-release copies of movies. No, it means there'll be some degree of fairness and equal exposure in oscar selection.

    As if the major studios don't control hollywood enough, a ban on DVD distribution would have killed most independant studios chances of even being considered for an oscar.

    Movies with limited distribution, and fewer available numbers of prints would've been shut out in favor of those which can afford advertising, and set up screenings at enough locations that a significant portion of the academy could view them.

    This move at least allows some degree of fairness. All movies have the chance of being viewed by all screeners, regardless of who distributes or produces them. It's still not perfect, but it's much better this way.

  • Bring racketeering charges agianst the MPAA. Only way to stop them for good.
    -Seriv

  • L.A. Critics Call Off Awards (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,12732,00.htm l [eonline.com]

  • Ah, the acadamy... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TrippTDF ( 513419 )
    There was a teacher at my college that was a member of the academy, and every Oscar season he would show all the nominees back to back in the school's screening room. He'd start showing them at 7 or so and we would not be done until like, 4 or later.

    Man, I miss college.
  • It's still unclear how this will affect events such as the Golden Globe awards.

    It's also still unclear how this will affect events such as downloading your favorite movie. :)
  • How does this stuff applies to nerds? I don't see how it matters. All news outlets, online or dead tree ones, are already saturated with hollywood related junk.
    • Not all nerds are unemployed computer programmers.

      I happen to be an audio nerd. One of the my dream jobs would be foley work for film. Of course, after I've gone on record with my feelings toward Jack Valenti*, I'll never work in Hollywood *OR* DC. Oh well.

      Stories about the film industry matter to me.

      * Valenti should have taken the bullet, not Kennedy. He benefitted the most, and longest, of everyone who was in the motorcade that day.

  • I have to say that leaked screeners sell movies. Before i could download movies, i never bought one. Downloading a movie si the only way i decide what movies are worth spending $20 on.
  • Suddenly, CowboyNeal is concerned with movie awards? The last I read, this was News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.

    Unless CowboyNeal is concerned with being unable to pir8 the latest screener DVD in the future, I don't see how this matters nerd-wise.

    Sure, there's awards to worry about. I guess. It's just an industry. I mean, we spend our lives toiling over corporate networks and don't get other IT people holding ceremonies and kissing our pimpled butts over a job well done. So, I am not too terribly concer
    • Maybe some nerds just happen to work in the film industry?
    • Unless CowboyNeal is concerned with being unable to pir8 the latest screener DVD in the future, I don't see how this matters nerd-wise.

      ...and hence, this qualifies as "stuff that matters".

      Or are you saying that you're not among the 60 million Americans who use P2P to get your latest media fix? I certainly am. And I'm not afraid of talking about it, either.

      Read my lips: I want to find out where I can get movies sooner and in better quality. The legality of it is irrelevant, at least the present legalit
      • Nah, I don't mind waiting for the DVD to come out and renting it. I prefer the method of movie watching that is both legal and doesn't require me to lift my ass out of this chair.

        Now if only it were legal to back up the rented copies, then life would be grand. But it's okay. I have my honor to maintain, regardless of how you moral cancers have spread through society in epidemic numbers, lately.

        A bunch of self proclaimed "Robbin Hoods", yet there is no charity. There's also no regard to the economic impact
    • Troll? What the hell ever. So mentioning the fact that this thread was about piracy and not about making sure the small films get a shot at an award is trolling?

      Why don't you pinhead mods make a note of how the thread is going. Most of what was posted after my message has more to do with piracy than anything.

      The fact that you /. pinheads can't keep your wAreZ shit off here contributes to the derogatory image of open source in the workplace. If you can't see that, then fine, use your mod points like a 13 y
  • There is a good side to this. If there are copies of DVD screeners floating around, the MPAA will know who is releasing them on the internet. They can stop their barraging of us average users and turn it towards their own people.

    Sick 'em boys!

  • Bad News? Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by crucini ( 98210 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @07:31PM (#7286162)
    The bad news is that only members of the Academy will receive them.

    Why is this bad news? Who should receive them? Why do you care about the movie industry's ritual pat-on-the-back?

    I though the only interesting aspect of this ongoing story was that the proliferation of fast internet access was forcing the industry to restrict screeners. Nothing really good or bad in that. And no, I don't care if some less mainstream film wins an Emmy or Grammy or whatever. The only outcome I'd find "good" is if the industry stops being profitable, so cultural energy flows into less centralized channels.
  • I really don't understand how this is even newsworthy to anyone who doesn't have a wooden leg, a patch over one eye, and a parrot on his shoulder squawking "Free Kevin!" morning, noon, and night.

    I have no reason to give a rat's ass whether the movie industry sends out screeners or not. I'm neither a filmmaker nor am I someone who reviews films for award consideration. I'm not alone in this. Virtually NO ONE here falls into those two catagories, which leaves the third group with a reason to care, pirates

  • Bad for independent films (Score:3, Insightful)

    by saikou ( 211301 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @09:01PM (#7286898) Homepage
    I, personally, think it is bad for independent films.
    When this ban was just announced, independents started to moan because their films are not widely available in local cinemas. Now keep in mind, that in most cases it is the big studios that distribute those indie movies. Studio affiliations allow them to share some glory (they're the one, who found "diamond in a rough" which receives an Oscar for... ), earn big bucks (indie film costs pennies compared to supermegablockbuster from W. Brothers ;)) and improve their return on investment.

    What would be the easiest way for them to keep the Oscars coming and money flowing? Push those movies into more cinemas in more cities. Yes, the latest alternative movie would probably still not be available on every screen in every cinema in your city, but it might be available in one or two arthouse cinemas (which generally is enough for limited audience films), and, potentially, growing to dozens of cinemas if it happens to be a hit.

    Now we're back to "release in 5 cinemas in the US, send 5,700 tapes/dvds to Academy members" scenario (with winner getting a bit more attention, and loosers never seeing the eye of the public in not-so-cosmopolitan cities).
  • Normally I don't point out language errors, usually they aren't that important...however I find myself "uncomfortable" with the idea that a "ban" can be "revoked."

    After all, it was the initial screening abilities that were revoked in the first place...can revoke be used to mean "reverse" in this instance?
    (Revoke implies to me that some ability associated with another person is being annuled. Here, the ban was not placed by the other party, but by the same party who will be reversing it.)

  • How can I become a member of the academy. I wanna vote and make sure something like Titanic never wins again.
  • Can somebody explain what the big deal here is? Aren't the movies reviewed AFTER they come out? If so, how is this a non-negligable risk of piracy at any stretch of the imagination, when Joe Viewer can pick up a DVD, rip it, and then return it, or mill them off in Asia? How are these "screeners" contributing to piracy? Is Tom Hanks running some operation out of his garage or something?

  • We nerds are the destruction of all society!
    Rejoice in your power! It's all just numbers, but they don't know that! It is the downfall of Rome! Watch it burn! Please. Spare me the dramatics from the Senators and the people that pay them to make things happen like Jack Valenti.

    Honestly, I have never seen such a society fearful of the neighborhood geek (the onese that make fun of you most are grateful to have around when their computer goes belly up during fantasy football trade time).

    We are
  • In protest of the screener ban, they would have cancelled an award show?

    I say keep the ban then!

    I can't tell you how much I HATE those &#$( award shows.

    Joan Rivers and others gawking over what horrendously tacky and expensive outfits the stars are wearing beforehand. Why do we care? The stuff is loaned to them, it's a form of product placement on part of the designers.

    Then comes the preaching on the evils of P2P at the start of the show.

    And before each award is presented, we get the awful, awfu

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