Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - March 28th, ’20

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March 28th, 2020




Amazon Launches Prime Video Cinema Hub to Corral New Theater Releases

Amazon's Prime Video Cinema offers current theater releases, which you can stream at home.
Steven Musil

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread and force movie theaters to shut down, Amazon has launched a new hub featuring movies that Hollywood hoped you'd be watching right now in the theater. Amazon's Prime Video Cinema allows you to rent or buy recently released movies through the streaming service.

Movies currently offered through the hub include Onward, The Hunt, The Invisible Man and Emma, although Onward is only available at the $18.49 purchase price, while the others are only available for rental at that same reduced price. They'll be available to rent for 48 hours.

NBCUniversal said Tuesday it would make movies available to rent online in the home the same day as their global theatrical releases due to the coronavirus outbreak. iTunes will also offer the titles for streaming purchase and rental.

This is the first time a major Hollywood studio has made a break from the traditional movie release cycle. Movies usually spend upward of six months in theaters before they move on to predetermined dates for release on other formats, such digital downloads and rentals, DVDs and, later, TV and streaming.

As theaters close and coronavirus preventive measures keep people out cinema seats, studios have mostly decided to postpone the release of new movies such as No Time to Die, Mulan, F9 and A Quiet Place Part 2.

Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for more information.

CNET's Joan E. Solsman contributed to this report.
https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-lau...ater-releases/





Tech Enthusiast Jailed for Selling Pirated Blockbuster Films

A technology enthusiast who sold unreleased blockbuster films online from his bedroom in Halifax has been jailed.

In 2012 the Motion Picture Association of America, who represented 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros, discovered that their films were being illegally distributed.

Delving into the piracy, investigators centred their efforts on an online profile called Dark999 who was selling unauthorised versions of films.

The investigation team used online aliases to establish that Luqman Farooq, 31, was the person selling the blockbuster films before they had been officially released.

Despite accepting $5,019 for Fast and Furious 7 ahead of its release and $1,200 for Horrible Bosses 2, Farooq insisted that he was only involved with internet piracy groups so he could report offenders to the authorities.

On 24 October 2019 Farooq pleaded guilty to defrauding copyright owners and proprietors of trademarks. Yesterday (Friday 6 March) at Southwark Crown Court he was sentenced to two years and three months in prison.

Proving Farooq was Dark999

Investigators identified the unique internet protocol (IP) address to show it was Farooq who had accessed an unreleased version of Fast and Furious 7 from a private site.

When Farooq’s computer and hard drive were searched, they found his logins for the Dark999 online profile, as well as proof that Farooq owned the PayPal account he had used for the transaction with the undercover investigators.

The prosecution showed that Farooq had bespoke software which was made for the production company’s clients to access films ahead of their release, as well as 22 files on Farooq’s hard drive which included unauthorised versions of Kingsman, Godzilla and Fast and Furious 7.

The court heard how Farooq had a short cut on his desktop to the Fast and Furious 7 film which had the same file name as the one accessed from the private platform and sold to online investigators.

After Farooq was arrested, he said he was only involved because he wanted to identify the main offenders to give this information to authorities.

However, the prosecution made it clear that Farooq had not reported anyone and was actually a key player in the piracy network.

Jonathan Kelleher of the CPS said: “Farooq insisted that he was only trying to help authorities by catching key players in the piracy network, but he was actually the offender responsible for pirating numerous blockbuster films.

“The technology, that Farooq was so fascinated by, ultimately led to his downfall, giving an audit trail of him accessing unofficial files and releasing them for his own gain.

“CPS Specialist Fraud Division has worked closely with colleagues from City of London Police and the US authorities in order to secure this result.”
Notes to editors

• Jonathan Kelleher is a Specialist Prosecutor for the Specialist Fraud Division at the CPS
• Luqman Farooq (DOB 14/8/1988) pleaded guilty on the second day of trial to the offence of conspiracy to defraud with others unknown the film and television industry copyright owners and proprietors of trademarks on 24 October 2019 and on Friday 6 March was sentenced to two years and three months in prison.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/tech...ckbuster-films





Someone Is Stealing Tracker Songs And Selling Them
Erik McClure

Today, in response to a tweet talking about old untitled song ideas, I mentioned that I had a strange file called “t.mp3” sitting in my downloads folder that had been there for years and have no attached metadata or hint as to where it came from. It appeared to be a complete recording of a chiptune song, and it sounded very nice, but I had no way of knowing the original source. To my surprise, someone else had heard the song and hunted down a source on youtube: S0 C1os3 - H4X0r.

But something was wrong. That video was uploaded in 2019. The file I had was last modified in January 2010, over 10 years ago, and for that matter it had been sitting in my downloads folder for almost as long. Perhaps the artist simply hadn't uploaded it to YouTube until recently? I decided to scroll through the comments, and discovered that someone posted the real name of the track: “So Close” by Floppi. I was even able to find the original XM file, and sure enough, it had been uploaded way back in 2003.

Now, some random person uploading an old song on youtube and trying to take credit isn't really that surprising, but this Youtube channel is special - it's a Topic channel, which is autogenerated from the Google Play Store. It even says in the description, “Provided to YouTube by DistroKid”. DistroKid is a music distribution service that automatically registers and uploads your album to all the major online music stores. I've used a similar service for my own albums, and do in fact have my own autogenerated Topic channel on Youtube, which is… kind of creepy, but that's besides the point.

The point is that someone has stolen 11 classic demoscene tracker songs and is selling them on every major online music store. The album is called “H4x0r R007z” and it consists entirely of blatantly stolen tracker songs lazily renamed using 1337 text, which usually means finding the original song is pretty easy. Because it was published via DistroKid, you can find it on Spotify, Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Deezer, iHeartRadio and it's been registered into the automatically populated copyrighted songs databases! That means the artist “H4x0r” could legally issue copyright takedowns for every other legitimate upload of the actual songs, or abuse Google's automatic fingerprinting system to force monetization on all of the videos and take all the income.

The songs that were stolen were often used in keygen cracking software that was popular in the 2000s to pirate software. Many people have noted that this was often their first introduction to tracker music, and this is likely the source of the name “H4x0r R007z”, even though the songs themselves usually had nothing to do with the hacker groups. The original tracker files are still available in the scene archives, and other Youtube channels have uploaded MP3 recordings of the songs with proper attribution. I was able to source 8 out of the 11 songs from the album, with the real name and artist, plus a Youtube or Soundcloud recording (if you'd like to play the original files yourself, you can use XMPlay).

1. 0 Pr1m4ry
Real Name: “primary” by Ramosa
Original file: ramosa-primary.mod
Only exists on the H4x0r channel

2. 5murf-E5Que
Real Name: “Smurf-Esque ‘98” by AGAiN
Author Info: Made with FastTracker 2 by Three Little Elks (3LE): Android (Jonas Kapla) Ant (Anton Halldin), Coma (Daniel Johansson), Nude (Sten Ulfsson), Tabasco (Niklas Soerensson)
Original file: smurf-es.mod
Youtube

3. Vib35 F20m Pa57
Real Name: “Vibes From Past” by Fegolhuzz (Figge Wasberger)
Original file: fegolhuzz_-_vibes_from_past.xm
SoundCloud

4. Bra1n Wound
Real Name: “Brain Wound” by Ghidorah
Original file: bw.xm
Youtube

5. Hy8r1d 50n9
Real Name: “Funky Stars (Hybrid Song)” by Quazar (Axel Christofer Hedfors)
Author Info: Quazar is an old alias of Axwell, one of the members of the Swedish House Mafia.
Original file: external.xm
Youtube

6. D0d3ch3dr0n
I was unable to source this song, possibly because the original song name was a mispelling of Dodecahedron

7. 51ne-15te2
Real Name: “Sine-ister” by dreamfish
Original file: sineiste.mod
Youtube (Some recordings seem to have more clarity than XMPlay provides, but it's not clear if this was intended)

8. Au70ma71k
I found several songs with closely related names to this, but no sadly no matches.

9. S3rV1l
I was also unable to source this song, possibly due to spelling errors.

10. S0 C1os3
Real Name: “So Close” by Floppi (Tero Laihanen)
Original file: intro13.xm
Youtube

11. 5or3 Po1nt
Real Name: “Sore Point”
Author Information: The original author of this song is unknown, although it was converted to .xm format for Infinitode 2. It was featured in several keygens made by AiR.
Original file: Unknown. Various conversions to other formats are available.

https://erikmcclure.com/blog/someone...tracker-songs/





COVID-19 Pushes Up Internet Use 70%, Streaming More Than 12%, First Figures Reveal
Mark Beech

The first internet streaming and usage figures are coming in as the coronavirus pandemic places a quarter of the world’s population under lockdown. As millions of people go online for entertainment and more, total internet hits have surged by between 50% and 70%, according to preliminary statistics. Streaming has also jumped by at least 12%, estimates show.

While an increase is not surprising with so many people ordered to stay at home, streaming of many planned sporting and musical events is impossible as they are cancelled. They have been replaced by some stars such as Coldplay’s Chris Martin, John Legend, U2’s Bono, Yungblud and Christine & The Queens offering impromptu home concerts. Still, the largest increase comes from other movie and music streaming.

“Increased consumption of digital content from mobile apps to free TV streaming and gaming has already been observed in China and Italy,” says Maria Rua Aguete of Omdia, the tech research arm of Informa Tech: “Online streaming services provided by brands such as Netflix and now Disney+ are likely to see 12% growth.” She said the annual figures are revealing: “Ecommerce will be the other sector that will see a revenue boost as a result of the pandemic, adding $175 billion in revenue in 2020, which represents a 5% increase.” This week, the streaming service Disney + became available in most countries in Europe, initially with a reduced bandwidth. As a sign of growing demand, Facebook, Amazon and YouTube have also lowered the quality of video streaming in Europe to ease the strain on the networks.

Omdia predicts $11 billion losses for the movie industry with a 25% decline and a 15% drop in TV advertising, especially for ads promoting events such as concerts that can no longer take place. The surge in demand comes coupled with a warning from the company that paid TV advertising may decline by 15%. Omdia also predicted that industry recovery will start in 18 to 24 months.

The streaming uptick is a turnaround from some early concerns that music streaming was actually falling because of coronavirus worries overtaking other issues. The most popular songs were streamed far less as a quarantine took hold in countries such as Italy. Since then, this has changed. Antonio Corrado, the chief executive of MainStreaming, says: “Telecom Italia has seen a 90% increase in traffic alone since the lockdown was put into place, driven by people trying to work from home. At MainStreaming, we’ve seen a three times increase in streaming traffic over our delivery network since the lockdown, with more people watching TV over the internet.”

While official figures from Google’s YouTube and other internet giants are awaited, Omdia’s figures accord with other analysts.

“Broadband providers are thus far experiencing a traffic surge between 30% and 50% across their mobile and fixed networks,” said Alfonso Marone, who is head of media at KPMG U.K.: “Where self-isolation policies are at their peak in Europe, the spike in internet traffic has reached as high as 70%, which is indicative of what the traffic surge could look like in other regions in just two to three weeks’ time. The most bandwidth-hungry are the online entertainment applications, especially those in high-definition like 4K movies and TV. For broadband providers, this spike may be seen as more a source of headache.”

The figures follow appeals for help from creators and estimates the COVID-19 pandemic will cost the music industry at least $5 billion.

The Disney + launch comes as 14% of customers in Britain alone have either purchased a one-year subscription or will be subscribing on a monthly basis, according to Chase Buckle, trends manager at GlobalWebIndex. An Omdia estimate of a more than five million paid subscriptions in Europe may equate to more than $160 million in revenue for Disney — not bad for this uncertain time of coronavirus meltdown.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markbee.../#7a3dd393104e





Opinion Analysis: Congress Cannot Subject States to Suit for Pirating and Plundering Copyrighted Material
Howard M. Wasserman

A state cannot be sued for copyright infringement because Congress did not validly abrogate sovereign immunity when it enacted the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990, the Supreme Court held Monday in Allen v. Cooper. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion for six justices; Justice Clarence Thomas joined the opinion in part; and Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, concurred in the judgment.

The case arose from a salvage operation for Blackbeard’s flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge, which sank off the coast of North Carolina in 1718 after a “reign over the seas” that was “short-lived.” Petitioner Frederick Allen was hired to document the salvage operation. He sued North Carolina when the state published some of his photos and videos without his permission and without payment.

The court held that Allen’s argument that the CRCA validly abrogated state sovereign immunity was foreclosed by the court’s 1999 decision in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank, which held that the Patent Remedy Act of 1990, enacted at the same time as the CRCA, did not validly abrogate sovereign immunity. Florida Prepaid held that Congress could not abrogate sovereign immunity using its powers under the intellectual property clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which empowers Congress to secure to authors and inventors the exclusive rights in their writings and discoveries. The power to protect copyrights and patents derives from one constitutional source. If Congress cannot abrogate for patents, as Florida Prepaid established, it cannot abrogate for copyrights, and for the same reasons.

Allen argued that the court’s subsequent decision in Central Va. Community College v. Katz, holding that Article I’s bankruptcy clause enables Congress to subject states to bankruptcy proceedings, changed the analysis. But Kagan said that Katz reflected “bankruptcy exceptionalism” and rested on the “singular nature” of bankruptcy jurisdiction. This includes bankruptcy’s origins as “in rem” proceedings (focusing on the debtor and its estate, not the creditors) that did not implicate state sovereignty, and the bankruptcy clause’s “unique history” of creating a uniform federal system in the face of states’ “wildly divergent schemes.” Moreover, abrogation under Katz came not from Congress, but from the Constitution itself. The result was a “good-for-one-clause-only holding” that did not apply to other congressional powers under Section 8.

Even had Katz changed the analysis and required a clause-by-clause approach, Florida Prepaid controls the intellectual property clause, and there are no differences between patents and copyrights within that clause. Allen could prevail only if he could convince the court to overrule its precedent in Florida Prepaid. But he failed to provide the “special justification” necessary to overcome stare decisis, beyond the “belief” that precedent was wrongly decided and that the court would realize as much if it reconsidered Florida Prepaid.

The CRCA also did not validly abrogate under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment because it lacked the necessary congruence and proportionality between the constitutional injury to be prevented or remedied and the statutory means adopted. The CRCA sought to further the 14th Amendment prohibition on states’ depriving persons of property without due process. But not all copyright infringements violate the due process clause; only intentional infringement for which the state fails to offer an adequate remedy does. But the CRCA, like the contemporaneous patent law declared invalid in Florida Prepaid, subjects states to suit for all infringements.

Florida Prepaid held that because Congress failed to identify a pattern of constitutionally violative intentional patent infringements, the patent law was “out of all proportion” to the problem and “swept too far.” The outcome in this case could have been different if the CRCA were based on a legislative record containing materially stronger evidence of unconstitutional infringement.

Before enacting the CRCA, Congress solicited a report from the Register of Copyrights, which concluded that copyright holders would suffer immediate harm if unable to sue infringing states. But that report is insufficient to “flip Florida Prepaid’s outcome.” There was little evidence of state infringement and no concern for whether those few state infringements were the sort of intentional infringements that violate due process, as opposed to honest or innocent mistakes. The legislative record also contained no information about whether states provide adequate remedies for any infringements, which would eliminate any constitutional harm. The CRCA failed to strike a congruent-and-proportional balance, just as the patent law had failed to strike that balance; both are of “indiscriminate scope” that is “‘out of proportion’ to any due process problem.”

The court allowed that Congress could pass a valid copyright abrogation. The CRCA was enacted in 1990, before limitations on Article I abrogation and before the creation of Section 5’s congruence-and-proportionality test. But Congress now knows the rules and might enact a tailored statute that respects constitutional limits while “bring[ing] digital Blackbeards to justice.”

Thomas concurred in part and concurred in the judgment, declining to join the court’s “opinion in its entirety.” He made three points. He rejected the majority’s demand for “special justifications” before overruling precedent, insisting that it is enough that a decision is “demonstrably erroneous.” Florida Prepaid should not be reconsidered, and it controls, because it is not demonstrably erroneous. Thomas did not join the discussion of future copyright legislation, deeming it inappropriate to “purport to advise Congress on how it might exercise its legislative authority” or to bless hypothetical statutes. Finally, he argued that the question of whether copyrights are property within the due process clause remains open.

Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, concurred in the judgment. He argued that the court’s sovereign-immunity precedents are “amiss,” continuing the objections he raised when the court developed this line of doctrine more than 20 years ago. It should not be that “when proven to have pirated intellectual property,” states cannot be made “to pay for what they plundered.” But Breyer recognized that his “longstanding view has not carried the day” and that

Posted in Allen v. Cooper, Featured, Merits Cases

Recommended Citation: Howard M. Wasserman, Opinion analysis: Congress cannot subject states to suit for pirating and plundering copyrighted material, SCOTUSblog (Mar. 23, 2020, 2:43 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/03/o...hted-material/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/03/o...hted-material/





Coronavirus: Radio Listening Booms While Music Streaming Stalls
BBC

People staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic appear to be listening to more radio rather than music apps, figures suggest.

Global, which owns Capital FM and talk station LBC, said online radio listening had risen by 15%.

The BBC said streaming of its radio stations had risen 18% since last week.

Meanwhile, data from two US analytics companies suggested use of music-streaming apps such as Spotify had dipped by about 8%.

"These figures indicate that the public are turning to radio in times of crisis," a Global spokeswoman said.

BBC Radio and Education director James Purnell said: "People turn to us during significant events for our news and analysis but also for music, entertainment and companionship.

"Last week, we saw record live listening on BBC Sounds."

The numbers shared by the BBC and Global are from their own online streaming platforms.

Radio Joint Audience Research (Rajar), the official organisation that measures radio listening figures in the UK, has not released its latest numbers yet.

According to trusted music industry monitor BuzzAngle, US music streaming between 13-19 March fell by 8.8% compared with the previous week.

Rolling Stone magazine, which uses a different data provider, Alpha Data, said streams were down 7.8%.

"There are likely to be multiple causes," said BBC News music reporter Mark Savage.

"Fewer people are commuting to work or going to the gym and shops that use Spotify for their in-store music are closing their doors.

"People who stream music in the office also seem to be turning off and watching Netflix instead and there's a big rise in radio listening - suggesting we're seeking companionship alongside our music."

But not all services are equally affected.

Classical music site Primephonic said streaming had gone up by about 20% since isolation measures had been introduced in Europe.

And any drop in streaming should not mean less money for musicians.

"Streaming royalties are calculated from a fixed percentage of the total subscriber income - so even if fewer songs get played, the pot of money remains the same," said Savage.

Internet use

People in the UK have turned their online attention to tutoring websites, politics, television programmes and gardening, according to cyber-security company Cloudflare.

The company monitors online traffic to more than 25 million websites that pay for its cyber-attack protections.

However, some of the world's biggest websites, including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Pornhub and YouTube do not use the service and are not included in its figures.

It said the biggest increase in traffic in March, compared with February, had been seen by websites focused on:

• tutoring (up 400%)
• politics - including political parties and message boards (up 320%)
• television programmes - excluding Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer and Netflix (up 210%)
• gardening (up 200%)
• children's education (up 160%)
• Christianity (up 140%)
• information about and discussion of board games (up 140%)

Other topics to see rises included:

• books - excluding e-books such as Amazon Kindle (up 110%)
• desserts and baking (up 80%)
• national news - excluding BBC News and others (up 70%)
• pornography - excluding Pornhub and related sites (up 60%)
• Islam (up 50%)

Several topics have also seen a fall in web traffic, including:

• financial planning (down 69%)
• low-cost travel (down 63%)
• football (down 62%)
• home repair and DIY (down 23%)
• buying and selling homes (down 25%)
• dining out (down 18%)

"It's not the most representative sample in the world but it's not bad given our scale, Cloudflare chief technical officer John Graham-Cumming said.

"We handle more than 26 million web properties all over the world.

"We don't have access to the whole world but we have a huge number of websites that use us.

"We handle about 10% of the Fortune 1000 companies, so you get a good sense of what's happening on the internet."
Scam emails

The company said it had also seen malicious activity such as hacking and phishing increase by 37% in March.

"We always see an increase of hacking activity when students are on holiday because a lot of hacking is done opportunistically - and we have sent all our students home," Mr Graham-Cumming said.

"We have created a situation where we have a lot of people who are technically capable and idle, so they may see if they can break into something."

He reminded people not to click on links in unsolicited emails as there had been a significant increase in scam emails being sent.

"We're in a very stressful time and I think bad actors are trying to exploit that," he told BBC News.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52037461





Streaming Service Hooq Files for Liquidation
Manish Singh

On-demand video streaming service Hooq said on Friday it has filed for liquidation after it failed to grow rapidly and cover its increasing operating costs.

Hooq Digital, a joint venture among Singapore telecom group Singtel (majority owner), Sony Pictures, and Warner Bros Entertainment, said the company sailed through “significant structural changes” in the on-demand video streaming market for five years but is now struggling to provide sustainable returns to investors.

“Global and local content providers are increasingly going direct, the cost of content remains high, and emerging-market consumers’ willingness to pay has increased only gradually amid an increasing array of choices,” a Hooq spokesperson said in a statement.

“Because of these changes, a viable business model for an independent, OTT distribution platform has become increasingly challenged. As a result, HOOQ has not been able to grow sufficiently to provide sustainable returns nor cover escalating content costs and the continuous operating costs of an independent OTT distribution platform,” the spokesperson added.

The Singapore-headquartered firm said it has not received any new funds from new or existing investors. According to Crunchbase, Hooq has raised $95 million to date, including $70 million the three aforementioned giants pumped into it in 2015.

The company will hold a meeting with its shareholders and creditors on April 13. In an exchange filing, Singtel said Hooq’s liquidation won’t have any material impact on its business.

HOOQ has amassed 80 million users in India, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines. The company counted India, where it entered into a partnership with Disney’s Hotstar in 2018, as its biggest market. The company also maintains a partnership with ride-hailing giant Grab to supply content in its cab.

The disclosure from Hooq comes as a surprise as just two months ago it was talking about its plans to expand its footprint in the nations where it operates. In an interview with Slator, Yvan Hennecart, Head of Localization at HOOQ, said the company was working to expand its catalog with local content and add 100 original titles this year.

“Our focus is mostly on localization of entertainment content; whether it is subtitling or dubbing, we are constantly looking to bring more content to our viewers faster. My role also expands to localization of our platform and any type of collateral information that helps create a unique experience for our users,” he told the outlet.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/27/st...r-liquidation/





Golden Globes Amend Eligibility Requirements in Light of Coronavirus

At least until April 30, but possibly beyond even that, films can qualify for consideration by the HFPA even if they do not first screen in a theater.
Scott Feinberg

Films can qualify for Golden Globes consideration even if they do not first screen in a theater, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Thursday. Instead, in a potentially game-changing decision that was made in light of the coronavirus pandemic that has shuttered all Los Angeles-area theaters, films "may instead be released first on a television format (e.g. subscription streaming service, subscription cable channel, broadcast television, etc.) and will still be eligible."

Describing this "alternate screening procedure" as "temporary" and "in effect from March 15 until April 30, 2020, with this period subject to later review and extension," the HFPA is suspending its requirement that its roughly 90 members be invited to an "official screening" of a film "at a third-party facility in the greater Los Angeles area" either prior to the L.A.-area theatrical release of a film or within a week after it.

Instead, distributors must contact the HFPA to set a date on the HFPA's calendar, as they would have if they were setting a date for an official screening, but on that date they may instead send HFPA members a DVD screener or screening link so that they can watch the film at home.

This alleviates stress for some filmmakers who feel a sense of urgency about placing their film on pay-per-view, VOD or a streaming service — perhaps because of a contractual obligation tied to a specific date — but did not want to undercut their eligibility for the Golden Globes by doing so.

The HFPA's statement notes, "The HFPA will continue to assess the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on motion picture and television distribution and exhibition and may extend these suspensions of the Golden Globe award rules and/or may make other temporary variations to those rules as it considers appropriate in the future."

The leadership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is currently deliberating about how it would like to handle this unprecedented crisis in the run-up to the 93rd Oscars, and is expected to announce its conclusions following its board of governors meeting on April 14.

The date for the 78th Golden Globes has not yet been announced, but Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have agreed to serve as its hosts.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ra...avirus-1286741





The Drive-In, Relic of Yesterday, Finds Itself Suited to Now
Jake Coyle

The drive-in theater, long a dwindling nostalgia act in a multiplex world, is experiencing a momentary return to prominence.

With nearly all of the nation’s movie theaters shuttered due to the coronavirus pandemic, some drive-in owners think they’re in a unique position to give moviegoers a chance to do something out of the house while keeping distance from others. This weekend, some drive-ins aren’t the only show in town. They’re the only show in the country.

The Showboat Drive-In Theater in Hockley, Texas, about a 30-minute drive outside Houston, normally sees ticket sales go down about 40% on a weekend when they don’t have any new movies. Last weekend, they saw a 40% increase, says the theater’s owner, Andrew Thomas. Usually open weekends, Thomas has kept screenings going through the week.

“Obviously this isn’t the way you’d want it to occur, but I’m excited for the idea that there may be a new generation of people that will get to experience going to a drive-in theater and — I was going to say catch the bug,” said Thomas, laughing. “Maybe some other turn of phrase.”

There are just over 300 drive-ins left in the country. They constitute a small, oft-forgotten flicker in today’s movie ecosystem that hardly competes with the megawatt glare of the megaplex and the nation’s 5,500 indoor theaters. But through decades of disruption and change in American life, they have managed to survive. They’ve somehow clung to life as relics of past Americana only to find themselves, for a brief moment anyway, uniquely suited to today

Not many drive-ins are open. It’s a seasonal business to begin with, with many drive-ins not planning to open until April. John Vincent, president of the United Drive-in Theater Owner Association, estimates about 5-10% were open as of last weekend, and some of those are closing due to the pandemic. In states like California and New York, restrictions on movement and gathering are being ramped up that mandate closures. As infections rise in other parts of the country, Vincent suspects the drive-in’s window is already closing.

“We’d love the drive-ins to shine but this is probably not the moment,” said Vincent, who owns Wellfleet Cinemas on Cape Cod.

However long it lasts, the drive-in is for now, in certain parts of the country, one of the only remaining refuges of public entertainment — of getting out the house to do something while still staying inside your car. At the Paramount Drive-in near Los Angeles, Forrest and Erin McBride figured a drive-in movie was one of the only ways they could responsibly celebrate their anniversary.

“We were like, what can we do? Everything’s closed,” said Forrest before a showing of “Onward” on Thursday night. “We were like, ‘Well, a drive-in theater is kind of like a self-quarantined movie date.’”

Aman Patel, a 25-year-old from Los Angeles, attended his first drive-in with his roommate and friends. “I always wanted to do it,” said Patel.

Drive-ins aren’t without their own virus concerns. Concessions and restrooms, in particular, still pose issues. All owners interviewed for this article said they were spacing out cars, reworking how customers could order food (sometimes via text messages) and limiting restroom occupancy.

Chris Curtis, owner of the Blue Moon Drive-in in Guin, Alabama, said he was doing something that has long been anathema to drive-ins: allowing outside food and drink in. “In fact, we suggest it,” reads the Blue Moon’s Facebook page. Like indoor theaters, drive-ins make their money almost entirely by concessions.

“We’re just trying to pay the power bill and the water bill and get through this, and give the community something to do at a time when there’s not a whole lot to do,” said Curtis, who’s owned the Blue Moon for 24 years. “It’s not about the movies anymore. It’s about having something to do.”

Curtis is concerned that too many people could show up this weekend, given the responses he’s gotten. To keep the Blue Moon uncrowded, Curtis launched online ticketing for the first time. “I don’t want people driving from long distances just to see that we’re sold out,” he said.

There are few movies left for drive-ins to play. For now, they can still screen recent releases like “Onward” and “The Hunt,” but those movies are already available on various digital platforms as studios have funneled their films to homes due to the virus. Earlier this week, all of the nation’s movie chains shuttered following federal guidelines that urged against gatherings of more than 10 people. The studios have cleared out their release calendars into May.

Those postponements have extended all the way to major summer releases, including Marvel’s “Black Widow” (previously slated for May 1). Eating into spring releases will be hard enough for drive-ins, but summer is when they sell most of their tickets. Owners say that if they manage to remain open in the coming weeks, they could potentially play older films (though those cost almost as much as new releases to play).

“We don’t know how long we’re going to have to live this way,” said Thomas. “Everybody’s wrestling with what it is going to be like in the middle of the summer when normally everyone is high-fiving and having a good time because the box office is going crazy. It’s when you go: This is why I got into this business.”

Drive-ins could also improvise in other ways. Lisa Boaz, who with her husband has operated the Monetta Drive-in in Monetta, South Carolina, since 1999, said they’ve been contacted by churches interested in using the drive-in for Sunday services. Parishioners would listen to sermons from their cars through the drive-in’s FM-radio transmitters.

“We’re kind of playing it by ear right now,” said Boaz.

Boaz said they had opened the Monetta earlier in March, hopeful for a good year. They have stacks of souvenir cups with “2020 season” printed on them. She’s not sure how long the Monetta will stay open, and — like other owners — said she would be quick to follow any state-ordered shelter-in-place guidelines. Deciding just to open this weekend, she said, was difficult. And she’s worried that other drive-ins won’t be able to withstand a few dark months.

But so long as it’s safe, Boaz appreciates the irony that in the year 2020, the best — and in many cases only — way to see a movie outside the house is at the drive-in. The pandemic hasn’t proven the supremacy of streaming as much as it’s shown how indomitable the urge is to spend a night at the movies.

“It is kind of nice that we’re getting a little bit of extra attention. Maybe people don’t want to stay inside as much as they thought they did,” said Boaz. “The old ways are the best ways.”

___

Associated Press Television News Producer Marcela Isaza contributed to this report from Los Angeles
https://www.newstimes.com/news/texas...tself-15146523

















Until next week,

- js.



















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