"Atonement," Sin and Cinea
By Andrew Wallenstein
Known to gorge exclusively on sci-fi and cartoons, P2P pirates have suddenly developed refined cinematic tastes. How else to explain the appearance of high-toned Oscar fare like "Atonement" (pictured above) and "3:10 to Yuma" among the most pirated movies online this week, right?
Well, not exactly. As blogs Gizmodo, Torrentfreak and Engadget have discussed lately, Oscar "screeners," or freebie DVDs of nomination-friendly films mailed to Academy voters, are ending up online despite piracy-protection measures.
What the aforementioned blogs get wrong, however, is the cause of this Oscar breakout. They seize on the retirement of the Cinea S-View, a customized DVD player put out of commission ironically enough because Oscar voters didn't like its onerous DRM. I know because I broke that story in September.
But blaming Cinea is ridiculous; the technology hasn't been used all that often going back several years now because the studios felt their own watermarks did the trick just fine. Of course, as several commenters noted on Torrentfreak et al, the watermarks aren't that difficult to bypass, so there's the real culprit.
Seeing the likes of "Atonement" isn't even a particularly new phenomenon; Oscar films always spike this time of year because of screener availability.
Here's Wired with a list of the top 10 most pirated songs, tv shows and films of 2007. Keira Knightley is high on the list, but not for "Atonement." For that she has pirates of the "Caribbean" variety to thank.
