[IP] MPAA drops Oscar screeners

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

> Delivered-To: dfarber+@ux13.sp.cs.cmu.edu
> Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 10:31:45 -0500
> From: Tim Onosko <tim@onosko.com>
> Subject: MPAA drops Oscar screeners
> X-Sender: tim@mail.onosko.com
> To: dave@farber.net
>
>
> Dave:
>
> This is an interesting story and quite amazing in its implications.
>
> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=598&e=5&u=/nm/20030930/film_nm/leisure_oscars_dc
>
> As you might know, at the end of the year, the motion picture studios send 
> out tens of thousands of screening video copies (almost entirely DVDs, 
> now) of their films to members of the motion picture Academy (Oscar 
> voters), guild members, press (Golden Globe voters) and studio 
> executives.  It's the ONLY way that many films get seen, since few people 
> actually go to the screenings the studios set up in theaters and in 
> screening rooms.  The practice began over twenty years ago.
>
> MPAA president Jack Valenti has decided that these screeners are the 
> source of pirate copies of movies circulating in Asia.  (He is partly 
> correct.)  And so he has convinced the studios to not release any more 
> screeners.  In doing so, essentially, he has accused everyone in the movie 
> business of being potential pirates, unworthy of being trusted with their 
> own films!  It's an ugly accusation, but Valenti -- who also warned the 
> studios that VCRs would lead to the studios' demise, in the late 1970s -- 
> doesn't care.  Now, many films, mostly smaller films and independent 
> films, will go completely unseen by Oscar voters and opinion makers.  It's 
> quite likely the studios will send out expensive swag in an effort to win 
> support for their films, instead.
>
> Indeed, every DVD is potentially a high-quality digital master copy of a 
> film, and there is nothing Hollywood can do to stop this, short of 
> destroying the entire DVD market and the billions in revenues it 
> represents, worldwide.  But then, perhaps that is what Valenti has in mind.

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