add my name to the list!
Film Actors Join the Fray Against ‘Screeners’ Ban (news.yahoo.com)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Several top actors and past Academy Award winners are joining the battle against a controversial ban on Oscar movie “screeners” by voicing their opposition in a newspaper advertisement, a film industry source said on Tuesday. …… The ad will ask the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood’s major studios, to reverse their decision to issue screeners to Academy members who vote on the awards.
The ban on “screeners” — videotapes and DVDs of movies vying for awards — has raised a major outcry by filmmakers, directors and now actors who say it will limit the number of people who will see contending films and discriminate against smaller independent studios.
The MPAA instituted the ban out of concern the videos and DVDs will be illegally copied and sold on black markets or distributed for free over the Internet, which happened last year.
why i care: now i, obviously, have different reasons for opposing the screener ban than the “top actors and past academy award winners.” in addition to being a big-time supporter of independent film, i am also a big-time supporter of the black market here in asia. i rely on illegal copies of these screeners. they keep me sane. please jack valenti, don’t make me wait until next summer to see lost in translation! please! lift the ban! if you don’t do it for me, do it for the orange street oscars.
see also: What’s the big Oscar DVD ‘screener’ flap?
10.16.2003, 11:28 PM · Movies
1 Comments
Hear Hear!! Then again… at least those video cams are getting pretty good nowadays. The back-of-the-cinema copies that i’ve come across have markedly improved over the year :D