Last year, Hollywood launched a battle against pre-Academy Awards Internet film piracy. But approaching this year’s Oscars there are said to be more Hollywood hits pirated online than last – including Million Dollar Baby and the four other Best Picture nominees, according to the Los Angeles Times and other publications.
The Times blamed it in part on the introduction of DVD screeners to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science members and other groups to publicize Oscar candidates beginning in November 2004. The DVD screeners are of much better quality than the VHS tapes that had been sent previously.
Some studios didn’t send release forms binding Academy members not to share screeners with others because of fears of unfavorable reaction, the paper added.
Between that and a lack of watermarking unity regarding the screeners this year, the paper suggested, the piracy volume accelerated approaching this year’s Oscars. There were also reports that Dolby Laboratories division Cinea, which developed a new player and disc system to make copying harder to do and easier to catch, experienced production delays stopping them from sending promised machines to Academy members.
Last year, watermarking helped bag one Academy member who lent screeners to a friend and provoked leaking of the films in question, a member later thrown out of the academy and forced to pay over $600,000 to Sony Pictures and Warner Bros.
