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MPAA Seeks Oscar Home Movie Ban
by Bridget Byrne
Sep 25, 2003, 3:00 PM PT

No more home-alone screenings of Oscar contenders?

Screening tapes--and more recently DVDs--for award-eligible films have been a given for Academy voters for several years. It's been a combo perk/privilege to be able to sit home in bed and decide whether Tom did a better job than Jack, or Gwyneth was more effective than Meryl.

But this year, those who skip out on the showings at their neighborhood multiplex in favor of their home theaters may be SOL. That's because the Motion Picture Association of America is trying to get the major studios to stop mailing out DVD and video screeners, claiming the practice leads to piracy.

Tinseltown has been in a tizzy ever since late Tuesday, when, according to Daily Variety, the MPAA sent studio honchos a draft of a proposal recommended a ban on screeners. Now, the suits are reportedly discussing whether such a move would be advisable, or even possible.

Although purists would like the mailings ended, believing it a disservice to any filmmaker to have his or her big-screen project viewed on the boob tube, turning the clock back is considered unlikely -- at least for this season. One studio source suggests to E! Online that stopping screeners is "a perfectly rational" concept, which might be possible to implement next year, but not in the few weeks remaining before campaigning begins in earnest for the upcoming February 29 Oscar ceremony.

It stands to reason that the studios' major releases, which are afforded splashy premieres and wide release -- wouldn't be as harmed by a screener ban as the companies' art-house divisions, whose films are only given limited releases, or those truly independent studios, who have used to mass-mailing of screeners to help level the playing field.

The MPAA proposal is directed not just at major distributors, such as Fox or Disney, but also those giant's subdivisions, i.e., Fox Searchlight and Miramax. Even DreamWorks, a MPAA nonsignatory, is involved. But, according Variety report, it is not yet know whether the watchdog group has also approached real independents like Lions Gate, Newmarket, Magnolia and ThinkFilm, none of which is an MPAA signatories.

Some conspiracy theorists see the maneuver as a way to guarantee Oscar goes to major studios at the expense of the little guy, who really needs the exposure brought by home screenings bring.

Other show-biz types question the parameters of the award season. We know when it ends -- Oscar nomination ballots have to be turned by 5 p.m. on January 17, and the final ballots returned by 5 p.m. February 24 -- but when does it officially begin?

Finally, there is the battle for eyeballs between the freebie screeners -- which are forbidden from having anything other than the movie -- and the consumer DVDs, which can have oodles of viewer-friendly extras. For example, likely Oscar player Seabiscuit will be out on video in time for the holidays. While voters would have to pony up some cash for the horse opera, its availability could give it an edge over other films that won't be out until months later.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which moved up the Oscar ceremony to attempt to regain some of the luster stolen by the numerous other award shows, has declined to comment. The Academy does not supply its membership list to the studios sending out screeners, has always proselytized for films to be seen on the big screen, either in theaters or at arranged studio screenings, and has, in its never-ending effort to halt excessive campaigning , managed to curtail the elaborate packaging and accompanying gift books that at one time accompanied the screeners.

The practice of sending screeners has also ballooned beyond just Oscar voters. The Directors, Writers and Screen Actors Guild all get screeners, as does the Golden Globe-selecting Hollywood Foreign Press Association and various critics' groups, among others. At the same time, theaters owners have taken a stance against the long-held practice of providing free admittance to members of these guilds and associations.

The MPAA, which is desperately trying to keep the movie biz from following the path of the piracy-ravaged recording industry, has already floated several other proposals to curtail copying. But the studios haven't backed such measures as disposable DVDs or discs with on-screen imprinting, designed to make the source of any illegally dubbed or distributed copies more easy to trace.

Calls to the MPAA were not returned, and studios contacted had no official comment.

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-30-2003, 12:27 AM:
 
Maybe this move will get those lazy Oscar voters off their asses, out of their chairs and over to a real movie theater to watch the show.

Correction: the lazy-ass Oscar voters will send their secretary or friend or whomever to go watch the show, say how it was and then cast their vote based on third party experience.

The MPAA may piss off some insiders with this screener-disc ban thing. But they will do a lot more to fight film piracy by eliminating those discs instead of sticking different types of watermarking into film prints.
 

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Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 09-30-2003, 12:28 AM:
 
A variation on the same article is posted here .

-Aaron
 

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Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 10-03-2003, 06:06 PM:
 
Geez, Miramax admits it's gonna have to play by the rules. The screeners must have been the Weinstein family's way of currying favor with the Oscar voters.

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Some conspiracy theorists see the maneuver as a way to guarantee Oscar goes to major studios at the expense of the little guy, who really needs the exposure brought by home screenings bring.

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• Play a cripple, win an Oscar
• Play a junkie, win an Oscar
• Play a retard, win an Oscar
• Possible last role, win an Oscar

 

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 10-03-2003, 11:05 PM:
 
Some anti-piracy R&D researchers here have said that some of the best pirated DVDs they have seen were copied from screener DVDs. But is it piracy if the dumb asses give out DVDs? Seems almost like a dare.
 

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Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 10-04-2003, 03:09 AM:
 
The Academy sure does love a retard... I guess Cuba Gooding is a shoe-in for RADIO.
 

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Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 10-21-2003, 05:03 PM:
 
October 21, 2003 The New York Times
Protesting Ban on Advance DVD's, Los Angeles Critics Cancel Awards By JESSE McKINLEY

In a sharp rebuke to a new ban on "screeners" — the DVD and videocassete copies of new films meant for awards voters but often used by video pirates — the Los Angeles Film Critics Association has voted to cancel its 2003 awards.

The association, one of the more influential film groups in the country, votes on its awards each December with the winners being announced at a ceremony in mid-January.

The decision, first reported yesterday in Variety and The Los Angeles Times, comes three weeks after the Motion Picture Association of America, the major studios' trade group, announced that it would no longer provide screeners to Academy Award voters. The move was an effort to curb piracy, an increasingly important issue for an industry that has seen profits hurt by cheaply made, cheaply priced copies of Hollywood blockbusters.

But the ban prompted widespread criticism in the United States movie community, including protests by many independent producers who feel that screeners are the most effective way of getting critics to see their films, which are often released commercially in only a few smaller movie theaters.

Such concerns seemed to be at the heart of the Los Angeles critics' decision to cancel their awards.

"We feel this really hurts the smaller independent films," said Jean Oppenheimer, the president of the group. "And the only way to show how deeply we felt was to cancel the awards."

While Ms. Oppenheimer said that her group acted alone, other film groups around the country are said to be considering canceling their awards in protest. Donna Daniels, a spokeswoman for the New York Film Critics Circle, said yesterday that her group was aware of the Los Angeles cancellation and would probably make a statement this week.

The Los Angeles group's three-paragraph resolution, meanwhile, voted on by its 50 members in a meeting on Saturday, left the door open for the awards to be reinstated if the ban is lifted. But while there was been speculation in the last week that the motion picture association may be trying to broker a compromise, as of yesterday the ban was still in place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/movies/21CRIT.html?pagewanted=print&position=

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
 

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Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 10-21-2003, 05:18 PM:
 
Either this thread or the MPAA, you suck! thread in the FHF should be closed...this double thread stuff sucks!

Where's a moderator when you want one... like a cop at the donut shop or at "Nacho Heaven"?

>>> Phil
 

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Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 10-21-2003, 05:21 PM:
 
In today Variety, they had an article that there will be a new lid on the videos. The studios and the MPAA may be ready to give the greenlight to screeners, but the question remains who will get them. An announcement is expected this week regarding a compromise solution that would allow all studios to send out screeners, enabling all films to compete on a level playing field. Though no details were official, sources indicated MPAA signtory companies are expected to agree to send out VHS screeners with some form of special encryption or security coding to members of various organizations, including the Academy. DVDs would not be sent. The big issue connected with the middle ground solution concerns screeners lists: Who will be OK's and who will be KO'd?
Though Academy members almost certainly will be included, it has to be determined who will remain on the list of guild members, critics and press who have been sent copies in the past.

Hey, Phil

"Nacho Heaven" sounds good to me
 

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Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 10-21-2003, 05:28 PM:
 

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Geez, Miramax admits it's gonna have to play by the rules. The screeners must have been the Weinstein family's way of currying favor with the Oscar voters.

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As does EVERY OTHER studio in Hollywood, plus the independents. ALL of them send out the screeners, Charles (or did).
 

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Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 10-21-2003, 06:17 PM:
 
This is the way I think it might work (probably will be flamed for this). Anyone who is eligible to vote in a particular category should be sent a VHS screener tape (upon request), and here's the thing that would deter piracy, each tape would have a serial number, when a tape was requested, the Name of the person making the request would be cataloged with the serial number of the tape sent to them. On the tape, every 20-30 seconds have the serial # burned into 1 frame of the video. It would be barely noticeable to the viewer, and this way, when pirated copies turn up on the internet and elsewhere, the serial #s will reveal the culprits.

(I'm probably being dumb, but this seems like it would work to me.)
 

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Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 10-21-2003, 06:19 PM:
 
Actually John, that was already discussed in "the other" thread...

Bill Said:

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"...Nacho Heaven" sounds good to me..."

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Yeah, to me too... but I "just had to" get a dig at Daryl...

>>> Phil
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-21-2003, 06:39 PM:
 
I agree with Phil. I am locking this thread because he says so. I am frightened of Phil and I don't want to get hurt, so it's best I just do as he sez.

Access the MPAA thread here:
Clicky clicky
 

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