Lions Gate, who sent the DVDs, isn't an MPAA signatory, so isn't bound by the ban.

The tapes, he did have to sign for; but he was upset that he wasn't IDed and that the delivery lady seemed unimpressed at how important this particular delivery was. Given that Fedex delivers radioactive medication and other truly odd items, screeners are probably not that interesting to those outside the industry.

Nevertheless, I think the point is, this screener ban is confusing to many and frustrating to most; within a few months we'll know if it had any positive aspects but at this point the aspects are quite negative.

Thanks for the clarification Travis.

Travis, is correct. But the whole thing, as your headline states, appears to have been "Much Ado About Not Much." Also, although I can't find it at the moment so you'll have to (yikes!) trust me, the one "academic" study done so far on how films are pirated indicated very little, if any, of it comes from screeners. Most comes up internall from people with access to the productions themselves. That's no surprise since the post-production houses have the material considerably in advance on any awards-related casettes or DVDs.

Roger, that's just not true.

The majority of piracy comes from off-screen camcordering of films. The public release of DVDs is also significant, as it leads to better quality reproduction.

The highest profile early copies are from internal sources. And ironically, they are the versions least likely to have a real economic impact on the studios because the quality is so poor. These are not the DVDs that are getting widening play in the U.S. or are at the core of piracy in Asia, where most of the money is lost.

Only a handful of screeners would have had a financial impact on the studios this year because of piracy. But that wasn't really the point. Like the idiotic lawsuit just filed, the point wasn't banning DVDs, but being able to push legislation through Congress without a story about a screener ending up on E-Bay - which would have happened, even if E-Bay would not approve the sale - making Congress question the committment of the studios.