News

By Chris Tribbey

The late-2014 leak of five films from Sony Pictures (Fury, Annie, Still Alice, Mr. Turner and To Write Love on Her Arms), following a massive hacker attack against the studio, was an unprecedented piracy event for the industry. That attack has been well reported.

But in the midst of Hollywood’s awards season, what’s been going on recently with piracy and awards screeners hasn’t received nearly the same amount of attention. 

Ahead of the Feb. 22 Academy Awards, an unprecedented number of screeners of nominated films have been leaked online, according to BitTorrent tracking site Torrent Freak. “Of all 2015 nominees, except documentary and foreign films, 34 of the 36 films (95%) are present on pirate sites,” the site reported. “Only the animated feature film ‘Song of The Sea’ and best original song nominee ‘Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me’ have yet to appear online.”

And not only are high-quality screeners for many of the nominees available online, Internet users are taking advantage in record numbers: Within 24 hours of its leak in early January, a high-quality screener version of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was downloaded more than 500,000 times on BitTorrent sites.

In all, TorrentFreak counted nine major awards contenders (including Birdman and The Imitation Game) among those with screeners leaked online. Screener versions of Selma, American Sniper, Unbroken, Nightcrawler, Big Hero 6, Into the Woods and Big Eyes have all made it online as well.

According to Bryan Ellenburg, a content security consultant to the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) and former VP of global content security and technology for Paramount Pictures, despite so many leaks, the studios aren’t moving away from physical screeners to promote their top titles.

Ellenburg tracked approximately 50 award-nominated screeners that were sent out to voters this season, and found at least 25% suffered a pre-retail leak online, ahead of the titles’ retail disc release.

“Of the 48 titles of note that were sent to Academy members, 17 of those titles (35%) were sent by U.S. Postal Service, which indicate no forensic watermarking,” he said. “As a frame of reference, a watermarked DVD screener can cost well over $20 each (including shipping), whereas a non-watermarked screeners sent via U.S. Post Service can cost well under $2 each.”

20th Century Fox (nine) and Sony Pictures Classis (seven) were among the more aggressive in sending out Academy screeners. Warner Bros. (five), Universal/Focus Features (four) and Paramount Pictures (four) all sent out their screeners before the New Year.

“The basic takeaway is that there was little to no movement from physical DVD screeners towards digital formats, streaming or download,” Ellenburg said. The Producers Guild of America received digital streaming access to Life Itself and the Pixar short film Toy Story of Terror, he noted, but the latter digital version didn’t work for some members.

Ellenburg isn’t sure whether or not the theft of those five films from Sony would have impacted how Hollywood went about sending out its screeners, if it had happened sooner. Sony announced the theft in late November, about a week after the hack itself.

“The studios were so deep into the screener season as far as manufacturing and shipping, or preparing to ship screeners, with marketing campaigns already in place, that there was no impact on curtailing screeners for the remainder of the season,” he said. “Until details of how these five titles were pirated are known, it will likely be collateral damage in the overall Sony hack news.”