Fox News Fires Journalist For Bootleg Wolverine Review [Updated]
Apr 5, 2009 by Bruce SimmonsWhen you work for the bank, you should not brag that you stole their money!
The world is an odd place. Despite the letter of …
When you work for the bank, you should not brag that you stole their money!
The world is an odd place. Despite the letter of the law, it seems that right from wrong depends on your relativistic take on an issue these days – and there’s an amazing perceived gray area to the issue of copyright infringement. In the end, we all do what we’re going to do and then we defend our take on our behavior, regardless of what it is.
Folks have… interesting ways of looking at the world.
Then there are those in public positions who pursue the “illegal” path, admit to it, and don’t think about their actions.
When a work print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine found itself floating out on the Internet, it was big for quite a few people. Of the many thousands of folk who saw it, some just had to brag about their deed and then write a review on the work print.
One of those folks is Roger Friedman and he used to work for a subsidiary of News Corp called Fox 411. In fact he worked for FoxNews for over 10 years.
After Wolverine escaped the confines of the 20th Century Fox post production world, Friedman seemed to go on a one way trip toward destined unemployment.
For whatever reason, he bragged about the ease of how he could get a copy of any of the present box-office top-10 films from the Internet, but disk space and time seemed to be his only constraint. Friedman also wrote a review of the work print of Wolverine.
How do I put it… Oops.
Fox was publicly adamant about their position on the illegal status of their work print being uploaded, and had brought in the FBI to pursue the issue.
When Fox discovered what Friedman wrote, his bosses felt his article was a blatant promotion of piracy.
Seeing as how a Fox employee is promoting the very thing that they deemed harmful to their technological property, they took swift action. Friedman’s article was removed and he was let go from his position of 10 years.
Afterward, News Corp said
“Roger Friedman’s views in no way reflect the views of News Corporation.”
And 20th Century Fox said,
“We’ve just been made aware that Roger Friedman, a freelance columnist who writes Fox 411 on Foxnews.com – an entirely separate company from 20th Century Fox — watched on the internet and reviewed a stolen and unfinished version of ‘X-Men Orgins: Wolverine.’ This behavior is reprehensible and we condemn this act categorically — whether the review is good or bad.”
Look, like I’ve learned from my previous article on the issue, and said earlier, we all have out different perspectives on the issue of copyrighted material. But when you work for a subsidiary of the company which publicly declared the circumstances surrounding this issue to be a scandal, you’d think some level of logical reasoning should have kicked in and Friedman could have taken a slightly higher road than he did.
As it is, this would seem to be the first official casualty from this work print debacle. As we wait, we’ll find out what more the coming days have in store.
UPDATE 4/6/09
There is conjecture floating around that Roger Friedman was not fired.
His blog is still up, minus the offending Wolverine post and Friedman said in an interview with ABC news that:
“There was no action taken against me.”
Other news is that Friedman has a meeting with News Corp execs to discuss the issue. Not sure what there is to discuss, but there’s the latest tidbit.
Sources: Cinematical, Deadline Hollywood Daily, Contact Music
Around the web:
Loading ...
What that man did is just completely idiotic. You work for a major national news corporation, you illegally downloaded a movie, and you posted your public review of said illegal material. It’s either a case of he wasn’t thinking, or he figured he wanted to be the first to review the movie. Either way bone-headed decision right there.
Well it’s nice to know that what goes around comes around. He deserved to be let go and I’m not surprised at FOX’s hypocrisy.
LMAO, what an idiot.
whats the point in reviewing an unfinished movie anyway?
He probably had to move back in with his mom… Lol
Excellent question Matt K. If you look around, Friedman seemed to have an interesting rep of illogical logic.
(I’m really trying to stay to my high road in this one!!)
JAGO: LOL… I scared my dog laughing out loud…
I think this sort of puts to bed any conspiracy theories that Fox released the work print themselves as a publicity stunt. They wouldn’t adamantly defend their stance against piracy by firing a veteran writer of 10 years if they’d done this themselves (unless they were looking for a reason to fire him, and yes, I know, technically two different companies, but still).
I couldn’t have said it any better, Ken.
No matter what your views on bootlegs are…..this guy was an idiot LOL
Worthy of a Charles Darwin award huh?
Like the guy robbing a bank with a note written on the back of a filled out application with all of his information on it.
News Corporation is generally full of failure, so it doesn’t surprise me that this person was an employee of them.
Doesn’t say much for the other news networks that are usually behind them in ratings… Oh well, mainstream news sucks.
Ken, i agree that mainstream news sucks, but where else would you reccomend to get information from?
Always check multiple sources for every news story and verify it from people on the ground, not just the summary of events given by biased news journalists.
But hey, I’m sure this guy has a job waiting for him on MSNBC, they got some “winners” on that network.
well I think this should open up a can of worms for hollywood and monster companies like Fox…
1) they are stealing from the American public. They go to foreign soil(most films are now made in Australia, New Zealand, Vancouver,BC). But they come to USA and charge ungodly box office prices in which we as americans have to pay tax on… why shouldn’t they have to pay import tax on movies and other things an ungodly tax to them and to the actors who work for them…
2) give them a tax break if they film 100% of the movie in local town USA, etc…
If they would support america as americans then maybe they would have more supports/sympathy for matters like these. but for me, i think just like the mp3 is to the music industry, avi is to foriegn hollywood… I lost respect for my favorite actor Nicolas Cage for his making the movie KNowing in land down under portraying NYC… f…ing sux…
note: this is a public attack… heheh not personal…
If Fox and other Studios don’t want to make movies here, move abroad… lose their American status… and see how well the future their box office hits are…
so I support this man… and think fox is stupid not to own up instead hide and fire…
down with fox!
Uh, c, I think you got it all backwards there. A lot of studios, not just fox, film in other countries because it is cheaper to do so. It is BECAUSE of the taxes that it costs a lot of money to film in America. Especially near socialist states like California and New York. So you know who to thank for that.
The spam filter is not my friend…:-D
@C: So basically what you’re saying is that if something is not made in your country you should not support it, regardless of it’s quality?
Perhaps we shouldn’t watch movies with non-us citizens in leading roles?
Own any electronic appliances? How many of them had the majority of their components made in the USA?
Offshoring is a fact of life for major companies, get over it…
Maybe Friedman subscribed to the same logic?
It’s unfortunate that some politicians like to make it so that it is not financially feasable to run a business in the United States. Thank the taxes and thank the Unions for that.
Studio apt for rent, free dsl connection,,,
seriously, I’m upset that the movie got leaked in the first place. How the hell does the film industry handle stuff like that? What kind of idiots are being hired in there?
but I laughed SO hard when I read this article. Thank God he got fired. I got the torrent emailed to me but out of respect, I didn’t download it.
Gee, seems kinda stoopid…
I never thought for a split second the leak of the movie was any sort of viral marketing tactic. That’s just silly…
Vic
That IS incredibly stupid… hopefully it’s not contagious.
Roger Friedman has a set of brass ones. Good for him for not being a toadie of the film industry. Unlike 99% of the so called critics and film websites.
don’t download the movie. i have been waiting for this movie for months and i damn sure am not going to let a bootleg spoil this one for me. i dont care how complete the bootleg is, i think this movie needs to be seen in the theatres to truly appreciate and to let it exceed expectations. im looking forward to it just like every other wolverine/jackman fan. i hope it doesnt disappoint otherwise ill kick myself for not downloading it and just get the anticipation for another month until the release out of the way.
He should have just kept his mouth shut .
Oh yah Michael J, all of those idiots that keep their job because they don’t advertise that they engage in illegal activity. What MORONS.
This guy has brass ones alright, unfortunately I’m talking about lobes of his brain being made out of brass, thus completely useless, lol.