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The Oscars piracy problem is only getting worse
In 2016, Oscar screeners for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are still receiving DVDs as part of the voting process. This year, though, the piracy rates are at an all-time high as all eight best picture nominees have surfaced on file-sharing sites. Variety reports that in response to the problem, the Motion Picture Academy will finally give streaming a shot with a beta test this year. Last year, the Television Academy transitioned from DVDs to Chromecasts for Emmy voting. In that scenario, members-only web and mobile apps are used for streaming purposes. Of course, many of those TV episodes have already aired, so piracy isn't as much of a concern.
Academy members get screeners through iTunes
Here's an interesting note that's not exactly new, but might be news to a lot of movie fans anyway: Apple has apparently been passing out movie screeners for Oscar voters via iTunes. That fact came to light in an FBI raid earlier this week when chasing down a man who allegedly uploaded illegal copies of movies like The King's Speech and Black Swan to pirate file-sharing services. Among the documents in the case were a few comments on BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay, where the suspect allegedly identified himself as an Academy member and said that "SAG now sends out iTunes download codes for screens." A movie studio contract firm did the footwork, connecting a digital signature on the pirated screener back to the FBI's suspect, as well as lining up the IP on The Pirate Bay's uploads. Piracy case aside, the interesting part here is that Apple is apparently coordinating distribution of Academy screeners with special iTunes codes. This likely isn't true for all screeners -- I have friends here in LA who still get their screeners the old fashioned DVD way -- but it makes sense that SAG would want to simply email codes to share movies early, as well as use any digital signature information to track down anyone illicitly sharing these copies. Especially for these two movies, which are already available on the service, it's probably easier to just give out codes than actually print DVDs. You wonder what Apple's role in this deal is, or if it has one at all (SAG might just buy the movies and pass out codes themselves). It could be like the movie trailers on the QuickTime site -- just one of those roles Apple happened to take over -- or maybe it's in conjunction with some other agreement Apple has already made.
Internet content filters are human too, funnily enough
Algorithms can only take you so far when you want to minimize obscene content on your social networking site. As the amount of user-uploaded content has exploded in recent times, so has the need for web content screeners, whose job it is to peruse the millions of images we throw up to online hubs like Facebook and MySpace every day, and filter out the illicit and undesirable muck. Is it censorship or just keeping the internet from being overrun with distasteful content? Probably a little bit of both, but apparently what we haven't appreciated until now is just how taxing a job this is. One outsourcing company already offers counseling as a standard part of its benefits package, and an industry group set up by Congress has advised that all should be providing therapy to their image moderators. You heard that right, people, mods need love too! Hit the source for more.
