Remember when Wolverine was leaked online after a copy managed to magically find itself in someone’s hands and inadvertently transferred itself to the internet?
Well Roger Friedman does. He used to work for Fox, and wrote an article reviewing the pirated copy of the rough cut. Friedman is suing Fox for wrongful dismissal. We can split hairs about it all you want but I think its ludicrous that Friedman is confident in his suit that publicly admitting he obtained an illegal copy of his employer’s property should earn him anything BUT an upgrade to customer.
Anyways, with more determination that OJ looking for the real killer, Friedman’s lawyer has found the real culprit behind the leak. Rupert Murdoch. Oh yeah! The grand poobah himself, the owner of 20th Century Fox is allegedly responsible for this leak.
Geeks of Doom share the latest buzz:
The NY Daily News spoke to the lawyer Garbus who claims that Murdoch wanted to see an early copy of Wolverine and asked to have a copy slapped onto a DVD. In this request, someone else decided to make a copy for themselves, which was then leaked. Deadline Hollywood’s Nikki Finke heard a similar-yet-different rumor that Murdoch wanted a copy on his yacht ASAP and that’s when the second copy was made. To be honest, they both sound similar enough to be the same, so whether it was his office of his town-sized boat, who knows. Obviously this wouldn’t mean that Murdoch directly leaked the copy out, but the thought of it happening per his request for a copy is still incredibly unexpected.
So when they are pointing the finger at him and calling him out for being “responsible” for the leak you have to really pay attention to what they are saying.
They are alleging that since Murdoch ordered a copy for his own personal viewing that he is RESPONSIBLE for the leak. This apparently is going to clear ANYONE of any responsibility because the guy who owns the studio asked for a copy to be created so he could check it out.
Did I miss something there? I can see how they tracked down the reason the copy was made, and even that circumstance then presented the opportunity for someone to make a copy and pocket it for themselves. Sure. There is your window. But it isn’t like they traced it back and found out Murdoch made a copy and then put it online.
This makes no sense at all to point a finger at him. He owns the studio and there is no reason to deny him the request of viewing the rough cut. It presented the opportunity, but he cannot be made responsible for the theft and distribution of the copy any more than I could be responsible for getting mugged for having money in my pocket.
The ONLY valid point that Friedman’s lawyer brings up is that the wrongful dismissal was that Friedman’s superiors that reviewed, and permitted his article to go to print seem to have escaped any responsibility at all. All articles written for that Fox publication or website still have to go through the proper channels, all of which should be responsible for his article in the first place. Some senior editor should have told him they were not going to publish his review, mostly for the same reasons that it got him fired.
