How did YOU score the Oscars?
p2pnet news | Movies:- How did you do at the Oscars?
And did you use Andy Baio’s chart to mark off who you thought should be the winners?
Baio runs Waxy.org and it’s, “Six years of Oscar piracy data on all 186 nominated films from 2003 to 2008 – including US release dates for Academy screeners, cams, telesyncs, R5/telecines, screener leaks and retail DVD rips,” he posted at the beginning of the month.
At that time, all but six of the 34 nominated films were available in DVD quality by the last week of January, he noted, wondering if the MPAA was/is doing a better job at preventing screeners from leaking online?
He doesn’t get into the thorny question of the fact many of the screeners which wind up online originate with Hollywood insiders, as Hollywood crooks are known euphemistically.
With a couple of weeks to go before the actual Oscar love-in, less than half of the 32 Academy screeners were online, said Baio, “But all but three of the 34 nominated films are available in DVD quality right now, either as a screener or retail DVD. (Lars and the Real Girl, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and The Savages are the only films that haven’t leaked online in any form.)”
That was on February 5. By 4:20 am, Pacific, this morning, Lars and the Real Girl and The Savages were on the P2P networks (screeners), as was The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (DVD rip).
So was this a reflection of Hollywood’s successes in stopping its own people, as well as Boot-Up Buccaneers, from releasing screeners to the WorldWideWeb?
Not according to Waxy.org.
Of the 151 of films nominated 2003 to 2007, 148 were available in DVD quality (either leaked retail or screener DVDs) by Oscar night, he says, adding:
The films are getting leaked just as quickly as ever, but apparently not through Academy screeners. This could be because watermarks and recent court cases are acting as an effective deterrent, but I think it’s attributable to two other reasons, which I mentioned in my post yesterday.
First, the gap between theatrical releases to retail DVD is getting shorter. (Note: I’m going to use the date the retail DVD was leaked as an approximation of the official DVD release date.) In the last five years, it’s gone from an average of about four months to about three months, and continuing to shrink.
Second, the rise of Region 5 DVD transfers from overseas. These DVDs transferred directly from the film source were intended to help them compete with pirates by providing high-quality retail copies of films at the time of the film’s release. Instead, it’s created a huge new method of acquiring films before screeners are even released. (Read more about R5s at Afterdawn.)
So, “Screeners aren’t leaking as often, not because the MPAA’s protecting them better, but because they’ve made the whole process moot by providing higher-quality, easier-to-acquire copies before screeners are released, in the form of R5 and retail DVDs.”
Meanwhile this year, no one made any snide cracks about piracy.
This was probably because the people who still call the shots have yet to recover from the embarrassment of having to admit figures they’ve been touting around to justify their attacks on American students as evil, file sharing criminals were so far out of whack as to have been rendered meaningless.
Not that such a minor detail stopped US lawmakers from continuing to move ahead against American schools on behalf of the studios.
Also See:
the winners – Oscar screener piracy: the raw facts, February 5, 2008
Hollywood crooks – Did a Hollywood insider leak Sicko?, June 19, 2007
rendered meaningless – Huge Hollywood mistake in student download stats, January 23, 2008
behalf of the studios – Educause against anti-college act, February 21, 2008
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February 25th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I saw all the Oscar best pictures and frankly Juno is teh only one Ive watched more then once.