Website reveals widespread movie screener piracy

Movie piracy is a major issue, but it can be easy to attribute it to overzealous hackers or teenagers who sneak cameras into theaters. Turns out this isn't the case: even members of the film community are prone to leak new movies onto the Internet.

An amazing new spreadsheet compiled by the author of Waxy.org tracks the history of Academy Award screener leaks. Essentially, distributors will give free movies to voting members of the film community for consideration during awards season. These copies are usually branded with some sort of watermark indicating that they should not be released or distributed. Still, it happens. Bigger movies with widespread appeal, such as The Hobbit and Lincoln, have already had screener copies leak, but niche movies (including Argo and Beasts of the Southern Wild) have yet to see preview copies hit the Internet.

This spreadsheet is another interesting piece in the ongoing puzzle of piracy. Nobody, it seems, is immune.