INDIE FILM GROUP SUES OVER SCREENER BAN.Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer A hearing will be held in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of City's U.S. District Court today in an antitrust suit seeking to halt the Motion Picture Association of America's ban on award-season screeners. The suit was filed by a coalition comprised of IFP/Los Angeles and IFP (1) (Intelligent Forms Processing) Using advanced techniques to scan documents and determine their data content. See ICR. (2) (Integer Factorization Problem) The difficulty of finding prime numbers in an encryption key. New York - chapters of the Independent Film Project - and a dozen independent production companies. The coalition, arguing that the screener ban represents unlawful restraint of trade restraint of trade Preventing of free competition in business by some action or condition such as price-fixing or the creation of a monopoly. The U.S. has a long-standing policy of maintaining competition among business enterprises through antitrust laws, the best-known of , wants the court to lift the ban and allow individual distributors to decide for themselves when and how to distribute promotional screeners. ``There's very little time left,'' said producer Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, whose Antidote Films is one of the plaintiffs. ``We feel we have about a week for the court to act and overturn this ban so the screeners can go out.'' In what was called an effort to thwart piracy, the MPAA MPAA abbr. Motion Picture Association of America made the controversial decision to ban its member studios, which include specialty art house divisions, from sending out the DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. and VHS (Video Home System) A half-inch, analog videocassette recorder (VCR) format introduced by JVC in 1976 to compete with Sony's Betamax, introduced a year earlier. screeners. MPAA member companies Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) ., 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures and MGM MGM in full Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. U.S. corporation and film studio. It was formed when the film distributor Marcus Loew, who bought Metro Pictures in 1920, merged it with the Goldwyn production company in 1924 and with Louis B. Mayer Pictures in 1925. as well as DreamWorks Pictures and New Line Cinema have all signed off on the ban. MPAA Chairman Jack Valenti was steadfast Tuesday in his defense of the ban. ``This is about piracy and nothing else,'' Valenti said in an interview. ``We are going to see if piracy diminishes as a result of this. It has nothing to do with who gets an award and who doesn't get an award.'' The screeners allow voters to see films at their convenience and, in recent years, have given exposure to smaller, independent films during awards season. The ban was partially lifted last month for members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences but remains for such groups as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Screen Actors Guild and critics organizations. Representatives from various groups met with Valenti earlier this month to state their case for rescinding the ban but were unsuccessful. ``They proved themselves to be singularly unable to listen to these views or come up with a compromise,'' Levy-Hinte said. ``The so-called compromise with the Academy really exacerbates the problem. It disadvantages all the other award shows. That partial lifting didn't help us at all and gave the larger studio films yet another avenue to do their marketing directly to the Academy.'' Attorney Greg Curtner said the coalition was asking for an immediate return to the pre-ban status until the judge could make a ruling on the merits on the merits adj. referring to a judgment, decision or ruling of a court based upon the facts presented in evidence and the law applied to that evidence. A judge decides a case "on the merits" when he/she bases the decision on the fundamental issues and considers of the lawsuit. ``If we get relief (today), we will later ask that it be made permanent,'' Curtner said. The group is also seeking an order that would require the MPAA to develop a forum that would give all constituencies in the film industry a voice in developing anti-piracy measures. ``In a court of law, whatever the judge decides, he decides,'' Valenti said. Greg Hernandez, (818) 713-3758 greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com |
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