Online Pirates vs MPAA – The 2009 Oscars
Written by enigmax on January 23, 2009Yesterday saw the announcement of the 2009 Oscar nominees. This year there were 26 movies put forward, and by nomination day, 23 of them were already being shared online in DVD quality, many of them copies of voter’s DVD Screeners.
Last year we took a look at the excellent research carried out by Waxy’s Andy Baio, as he provided detailed piracy stats for every Oscar-nominated movie since 2003. Andy contacted us to announce that he’s been working hard again in 2009 – we take a look at his findings.
For the 2009 Oscars, 26 movies were nominated. In alphabetical order they are: Australia, Bolt, Changeling, Defiance, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, Frozen River, Happy-Go-Lucky, In Bruges, Hellboy II, Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda, Milk, Rachel Getting Married, Revolutionary Road, Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, The Duchess, The Reader, The Visitor, The Wrestler, Tropic Thunder, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Wall-E and Wanted.
Of these 26 movies, 25 were available online by yesterday’s nomination day – only Rachel Getting Married made the date piracy-free. An MPAA-worrying 23 of these were downloadable in either DVD Screener or Retail DVD format (Region 5 included). In the past months many of the nominees appeared in our weekly download charts, with The Dark Knight as the absolute winner topping 7 million downloads in 2008.
Of course, the MPAA is always keen to point to the ‘evils’ of camcorder piracy and has clamped down heavily on this in recent years. However, it doesn’t seem able to deal effectively with its own internal issues. Of the 26 nominated films, 20 were distributed to Oscar voters in DVD Screener format. Many of them leaked onto the web, with the exceptions countable on one hand.
In 2003 the MPAA temporarily banned Oscar screeners to prevent them from leaking, but this decision was eventually reversed. Since then, the industry has touted technical solutions such as Cinea to protect their content, but for various reasons it hasn’t stopped the leaks. This year the average time from DVD Screeners being delivered to voters and subsequently leaking out to the web, was just 6 days.
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28 Responses
The leak prevent us from watching crappy movies winning oscars. Let’s face it, movies winning oscars aren’t always that good. “Traffic” is a great example.
first?
It's clear those members do not consider piracy so terrible for the movie industry, and rather share it with the world. I agree with them, the mpaa and followers need to remove the stick from their bottom, and accept the new age.
It is more important for the voting population to do so. The vote is supreme.
long live piracy
Burn in hell MPAA :D
They should be SENT to hell right now! Revenge!
Whatever the MPAA does, we ought not to forget it, we ought not to pardon them for their wrongs. Down with the MPAA!
Are most the posters here retarded or just ignorant?
Down with the MPAA? Okay, so when they go down you can pirate all you like because there will be far less good movies worth watching. True, we all disagree with the lawsuits and consumer bullying but please… if the MPAA goes away so do the movies you enjoy. I'm completely pro-piracy but I'm not 100% ungrateful like the lot of you.
I'll correct myself before anybody else does: "Are most OF the posters here retarded or just ignorant?" was my intended statement.
"Grateful?" Grateful for suing people and using copyright extortion and FUD intimidation? For bullying everyone around and using FUD in regards to file-sharing? Distributing misleading propaganda to the masses regarding copyright? Trying to impose a police state on the internet? What exactly, now, do we have to be grateful for from these pathetic excuses of "human beings"?
I am amazed Rachel Getting Married hasn't shown up at all. It's one of the only ones I actually have some interest in watching and there's not even a damn cam out.
So what exactly do you mean that the MPAA has done to make the motion picture industry more plentifull?
We all know they are (trying to) preventing movies from reaching non-paying consumers. But they also actively hold back independent movies through the MPAA ratings board, by giving a harch and inaccurate rating, so these movies can't be advertised on regular channels. Furthermore they are forcing DRM and simular technology onto any distibutor that tries to sell legitimate copies over the internet.
I've yet to see the MPAA do anything to widen the market for good movies. That's why i'd very much like to know what you are referring to when stating the above.
It may just suck so bad that the cammers turn off their cameras rather than waste the space to store it…
Rachel got marrided!? I hope it wastet a douscebag…she looks like the type that would choose em…
to see her wedding photos and vidoes! Now….so I can jack off to them…NOW!
…to fail, but not the last.
(Side note: the Oscars are BS, it's a broken system where the best option in a given category rarely wins. The funny thing is that most people seem to accept that =^/ )
I agree! I kept wondering when it would show up and it never did. Weird.
you mucky little bugger…….
yes most of the posters here are retarded
yes we are retarded to wishing good fortune upon the dying beast called the mpaa,
yes we retard your notion that YOU in fact have one ounce of intelligence formed at the moment of creation. Stellar mass you say ? OH you just gave birth to a terd , after all they keep coming out of your mouth NasteyBedazzler moron feed the noob troll spank you later gay weirdo artist wanna be.
Man, that was SO deep.
"YOU in fact have one ounce of intelligence formed at the moment of creation"
"OH you just gave birth to a terd"
"NasteyBedazzler moron feed the noob troll spank you later gay weirdo artist wanna be."
Those are a few of my favorite excerpts from the well-crafted post above. Dude you so totally burned me just now.
yeah
Believe it or not, we need the MPAA/RIAA. Otherwise, the internet has nobody to fight. Wouldn't it suck having nobody to hate? :)
The MPAA is an organisation that has nothing to do with the production of movies. It's primary purpose is to represent the interests of movie studios.
But how are we even fighting them in the first place? Although the MPAA/RIAA is fighting the internet, the internet is currently not fighting back.
just like last year BTARENA.org Oscars are back
everything released until now can be found here:
http://www.btarena.org/pages/oscar-2009
spread the page to everyone
The only thing that this "anti-piracy" could accomplish is the halt of progress.
Roze
http://www.10ch.org/
We're fighting them using piracy, duh.
How could you consider that "fighting" when there is almost no resistance whatsoever when they try to "stop piracy"?
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