When the nominations for the Academy Awards are announced
Thursday, untold millions of people already will have watched some of the
leading flicks. But many of them likely didn’t view the motion pictures on a
theater’s big screen, even though the movies haven’t been released on DVD or
Blu-ray.
That’s because many Blockbusters have leaked to BitTorrent
pirate sites, and the likely seeders are academy members.
The academy usually sends out digital or disc screener editions
in December to many of its roughly 6,000 voting members. Many of the hot,
in-theater-only flicks are now available online and they’re tagged “DVDSCR.”
The development
highlights an unspoken irony in the file-sharing world. While the Hollywood
studios loudly complain that pirate sites are dooming their businesses and demand
Congress do something about it, the top flicks appearing on pirate sites
often are seeded by insiders.
It happens year
after year, despite screener copies now being loaded with watermarks.
To be sure, camcording
is also a problem, but the latest blockbuster flicks appearing on the top
pirate sites are the real deal.
TorrentFreak notes
that the leaked Oscar screeners “are
BitTorrent Smash Hits,” with Quentin Tarantino’s Django
Unchained racking up 500,000 downloads the first day it was seeded
Saturday. The Hobbit, seeded days ago, racked up more than 2 million
downloads, according to a TorrentFreak analysis.
Hollywood sticks to a pre-digital business model and generally
prevents people from legitimately buying movies to watch at home if the same
pictures are playing in theaters. Yet as millions of copies of in-theater movies
are downloaded for free over BitTorrent, the studios decry pirates as the
scourge of the earth while failing to recognize that Hollywood could capitalize
on a market feverishly hungry for the newest flick.
Right or wrong and
with nowhere else to turn, copyright scofflaws are seizing on hot and cold
flicks available from the usual
pirate sites.
In December, movies like The Perks of Being a
Wallflower, Flight, Lincoln and Skyfall became
available for the pilfering masses. And earlier this month, Zero Dark
Thirty and Hitchcock appeared.
The academy did not immediately respond for comment. The 85th
Academy Awards show is Feb. 24.
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