I never thought I defend a Fox "journalist"

[trinityvixen]

There's still no confirmation that I've seen that this guy was actually fired, but chances are good he was. For reviewing the bootleg copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine that circulated recently.

The reason for such a harsh reaction would be, presumably, that the Fox folk don't want to get sued for damaging the marketability of the movie. Previously, Ang Lee's Hulk, the last major studio film to be leaked before its opening weekend, went on to do horrible business. The poor advance word-of-mouth was blamed. I say: WORST COMIC BOOK MOVIE EVER. So there is a reasonable case to be made that someone's already illegal action--piracy--is worse because there is some nebulous effect it might have on people before the movie comes out. As in, the stuff that will happen anyway if it's a bad movie after a week or two of being in the theater, happening earlier will cost the studio some untold number of tickets that otherwise ignorant, credulous people would have paid, sight unseen, for a movie they only hoped was good.

(I discount the idea that the pirates themselves, no matter how many downloads this got, wouldn't all go to the movie. First off, many of them would likely never have paid to see the movie. I make this claim with some certainty because anyone who is happy with a low-quality, unfinished bootleg doesn't care enough to pay $12 for a ticket. Secondly, any who would pay, will probably still do so as the movie studio has confirmed that this was an un-edited, un-reshot version. Anyone interested in the Wolverine movie will have to pay for the theatrical version. Or they won't--see point #1.)

But is it really the journalist's fault that he tried to access this? Under our reactionary copyright, et al. laws, yes. He's a criminal, he's luck he's not in jail or fined within an inch of his life. As someone reporting on a story, however, I don't see that he couldn't have downloaded it (or found a pirate friend who had--it's like shooting fish in a barrel) just to see what the story was about. After all, he's doing research. It's not like Fox Studios was letting more copies go for news outlets to write about. (Certainly not after this.) I just don't think this is an appropriate response. It's a predictable one, but a ludicrous one. (Moreso because, what the shit, is Fox going to sue itself over this?)

Comments

Re: TLDR 2

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

Not to play continual devils advocate, but I don't know if I agree with "And if they didn't, they should be in as much trouble as he." That smacks of pre-publishing censorship. As much as Fox Noise steers the direction of its reporting, I don't know if I like the idea of some higher ups of a journalist telling them what they can and can't write. If, after the fact, what he writes gets him in trouble, that's one thing, and he can fight over whether he had the right to write that info. But once you start enforcing these rules for the journalists and silencing them - especially if your problem is with the breaking of company policy or acting against the interests of the company as opposed to breaking laws, and I'm guessing that their problem was more that he was advocating breaking of a law that directly impacted his particular parent company, not a general law - you've got a really chilling effect.

I doubt that if he talked of smoking weed they'd have reacted this way, but I really don't like the idea of them censoring him. They gave him the rope, he hanged himself. And I'm not sure Piracy is only busted when it can serve a lesson. I think that's a factor, but I think Piracy is also a lot more likely to be busted if it's really flagrant and really public. Pass off dupes of this film to your non-industry-and-law-enforcement friends in private, you're probably okay. Pass out dupes in the open at, say, Comiccon under the noses of industry professionals, and the lesson teaching is a factor, but the flagrancy is also an issue.

Wave it in their face, and the face of the public and large, and they're forced to enforce the rule - because letting it slide as the might otherwise do is a public renunciation of their own rules, and an implicit approval of all breaking of said rule.

The fact that hardly anyone but Fox cares is a nonissue, I think. If you accept the premise that Pirating has at least *some* negative affect on the movie industry's bottom line (debatable, sure, but a not unreasonable assumption), then pretty no one *but* Fox is in the position to be damaged by piracy. Hardly anyone but the owners of public property that have to repaint it care much about graffiti, but that doesn't mean they don't have every right to enforce anti-graffiti laws. I'm sure they are focussing their efforts on the leaker, but it's not a zero sum game, and he/she was at least smart enough not to post on their company blog, from their company address, so they made themselves a hard target.

This guy made himself an unavoidable target, because if they didn't go after him bragging about breaking their rules while within their space, they basically would be making a tacit approval of an activity that directly harms them - even if it doesn't harm anyone else, and no one else cares.

Re: TLDR 2

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying this is an issue of censorship, only one of poor editing. As you've pointed out, if he'd been more circumspect in his review, he wouldn't have been in trouble. An editor's job is help out with that sort of thing--to recognize what is up to standard and what will just result in a lot of trouble for all involved.