A federal judge Friday freed movie distributors to send copies of films to awards voters – a decision seen as a victory for independent film producers as awards season approaches.
U.S. District Judge Michael B. Mukasey lifted a rule imposed by the Motion Picture Association of America that blocked studios from sending the videotape copies, or “screeners,” to voters.
The MPAA had argued that the ban, issued in September, was a means of slowing the explosion of movie piracy. Digital copies of many films turn up on the Internet long before they’re released to video stores.
But independent film producers, who lack the huge advertising budgets of major studios, said screeners dramatically raised their chances of receiving critical buzz, winning awards – and making more money.
Mukasey decided the independent film producers had shown sufficient evidence that withholding screeners violates antitrust law and hurts competition.
“The screener ban will significantly harm independent films, thereby reducing the competition these films pose to major studio releases,” Mukasey said in Manhattan federal court.
Screeners allow awards voters to view movies on their own time, in their homes. Banning them, small film producers argued, means voters must attend one-time-only premieres or see the films in a limited number of theaters.
The ban was modified in October to allow the 5,600 voters who decide the Academy Awards, the industry’s most influential, to receive the videotapes.
But voters for smaller awards that precede the Oscars weren’t allowed to receive screeners. Nominations for two such awards already have come and gone, and Golden Globe award contenders will be decided soon.
The MPAA, a trade group composed of most major studios in America, said it would appeal the decision within two weeks to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We know, without dispute, that in the past screeners have been sources for pirated goods both domestically and overseas,” MPAA chief Jack Valenti said. “We will appeal because the impact and growing threat of piracy is real and must be addressed wherever it appears.”
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