An anonymous reader quotes USA Today: Two programmers in Las Vegas recently admitted to running two of the largest illegal television and movie streaming services in the country, according to federal officials... An FBI investigation led officials to Darryl Polo, 36, and Luis Villarino, 40, who have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges for operating iStreamItAll, a subscription-based streaming site, and Jetflix, a large illegal TV streaming service, federal officials said Friday.

With roughly 118,000 TV episodes and 11,000 movies, iStreamItAll provided members with more content than Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Vudu, according to prosecutors. Polo urged members of iStreamItAll via email to cancel licensed services in favor of pirated content, according to his plea agreement. He also admitted to earning $1 million from his piracy operations, officials said. He also admitted to downloading the content from torrent websites. "Specifically, Polo used sophisticated computer programming to scour global pirate sites for new illegal content; to download, process, and store these works; and then make the shows and movies available on servers in Canada," officials said.

Last weekend saw the death of Rene Auberjonois at age 79, writes Variety.

schwit1 quotes their report: Auberjonois was a prolific television actor, appearing as Paul Lewiston in 71 episodes of 'Boston Legal' and as Clayton Runnymede Endicott III in ABC's long-running sitcom 'Benson.' He played Odo in 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,' and carried that role into video games, voicing the same role in 'Harbinger' and 'The Fallen.' He appeared in the movie 'MASH' as Father Mulcahy in the first of several collaborations with Robert Altman. Other film credits include Roy Balgey in 1976's 'King Kong' and Reverend Oliver in 'The Patriot,' as well as parts in 'McCabe & Mrs. Miller,' 'Eyes of Laura Mars' and 'Walker.'
He also played the French chef in Disney's The Little Mermaid -- a role which Rene reenacted live at the end of this video where he discussed his friendship with William Shatner.

And this week ET shared footage of Rene thoughtfully reflecting after filming the last episode of Deep Space Nine.

As we approach the weekend -- but more importantly, the end of the year -- it's good time as any to ask about the movies, TV shows, and documentaries from this year that you enjoyed the most or found incredibly insightful. Please list them below in the comments.

A court on Tuesday issued an injunction barring Netflix from poaching employees from Fox and confirming the validity of fixed-term employment agreements. Variety reports: The ruling marks a hard-fought victory for Fox -- now owned by Disney -- which set out three years ago to stop Netflix from raiding its employees. Netflix had sought to invalidate Fox's fixed-term employment contracts, arguing that they locked employees into jobs they no longer wanted. Had Netflix prevailed, it would have upended a standard industry practice and given employees greater leverage in negotiations with their employers.

Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Marc Gross issued a tentative ruling on Nov. 25 indicating how he was likely to rule in the case. He affirmed the conclusions of the tentative opinion and made addition points in his final ruling on Tuesday. Netflix has indicated it is likely to appeal. Netflix said: "As Judge Gross ruled, Fox failed to prove it was hurt in any way when two executives decided to exercise their right to go to Netflix. Fox's illegal contracts force employees to remain trapped in jobs they no longer wish to do and at salaries far below market rate. We will continue to fight to make sure that people who work in the entertainment industry have the same rights as virtually every other Californian and can make their own choices about where they work."

Disney has become the first studio in history to surpass $10 billion at the worldwide box office in a single calendar year. Variety reports: Through Sunday, the studio has generated $3.28 billion in North America and $6.7 billion overseas for a global haul of $9.997 billion and is expected to officially cross the benchmark within the next day. Disney smashed its own global box office milestone -- set in 2016 with $7.6 billion -- back in July after the success of "Avengers: Endgame" and "The Lion King." All the more impressive, the studio hit the new high-water mark even before "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," the final chapter in the Skywalker saga, arrives in theaters Dec. 20. Those ticket sales don't include Fox titles like "Ford v Ferrari" or "Dark Phoenix." When accounting for movies it acquired after inheriting Fox's film empire, that bounty is pushed to $11.9 billion.

"The Walt Disney Co. is asking exhibitors worldwide to warn moviegoers that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker may pose a seizure risk to audience members with photosensitive epilepsy," reports Deadline: In an unusual move, Disney has sent a letter to theater owners and operators worldwide with a recommendation that special steps should be taken to alert moviegoers about the visual effects and flashing lights in the J.J. Abrams-directed interstellar adventure. "Out of an abundance of caution," the letter opens, "we recommend that you provide at your venue box office and online, and at other appropriate places where your customers will see it, a notice containing the following information: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker contains several sequences with imagery and sustained flashing lights that may affect those who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy or have other photosensitivities."

The Burbank-based Disney is also working with the Epilepsy Foundation, which issued an advisory of its own and commended the studio for taking the initiative on the audience safety issue. About 3.4 million Americans have epilepsy and about three percent have photosensitivity issues that puts them at risk of seizures triggered by flashing lights or other visual patterns.

"Linux users can now stream shows and movies from the Disney+ streaming service after Disney lowered the level of their DRM requirements," reports Bleeping Computer: When Disney+ was first launched, Linux users who attempted to watch shows and movies were shown an error stating "Something went wrong. Please try again. If the problem persists, visit the Disney+ Help Center (Error Code 83)."

As explained by Hans de Goede, this error was being caused by the Disney+ service using the highest level of security for the Widevine Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. As some Linux and Android devices did not support this higher DRM security level, they were unable to stream Disney+ shows in their browsers... Yesterday, Twitter users discovered that Disney+ had suddenly started working on Linux browsers after the streaming service tweaked their DRM security levels...

Even with Disney+ lowering the DRM requirements, users must first make sure DRM is enabled in the browser. For example, Disney+ will not work with Firefox unless you enable the "Play DRM-controlled content" setting in the browser.

The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has released a new study which suggests that piracy is dropping in Europe. While the research is limited to site-based piracy, it has some interesting findings. Countries with a lower average income per person visit pirate sites more often, for example. In addition, the study shows that awareness of legal options doesn't always decrease piracy.

A group of filmmakers have sued the State Department for making visa applicants hand over details about their social media accounts. "The lawsuit argues that the requirement unconstitutionally discourages applicants from speaking online -- and, conversely, discourages people who post political speech from trying to enter the U.S.," reports The Verge. From the report: This lawsuit, filed by the Doc Society and the International Documentary Association, challenges the decision on First Amendment grounds. It calls the registration system "the cornerstone of a far reaching digital surveillance regime" that makes would-be visitors provide "effectively a live database of their personal, creative, and political activities online" -- which the government can monitor at any time, long after the application process has been completed. Applicants must even disclose accounts that they use pseudonymously, and if U.S. authorities fail to keep that information secure, it could potentially endanger people who are trying to avoid censorship from a repressive foreign government.

The plaintiffs in this lawsuit say that some non-U.S. members have begun deleting social media content or stopped expressing themselves online because they're afraid it will complicate their ability to enter the U.S. Others have decided to stop working in the country because they don't want to reveal their social media accounts. "The Registration Requirement enables the government to compile a database of millions of people's speech and associations, which it can cross-reference to glean more information about any given visa applicant," warns the suit. And "the government's indefinite retention of information collected through the Registration Requirement further exacerbates the requirement's chilling effect because it facilitates surveillance into the future."

Media center app maker Plex officially launched its ad-supported video service with movies and TV shows from MGM, Warner Bros., Lionsgate and Legendary Wednesday. The service will be available in more than 200 countries and territories, making it the first ad-supported video service with a nearly global reach. From a report: Getting the rights to launch in so many countries was key to bringing ad-supported video to Plex, said CEO Keith Valory in a recent interview with Variety. "More than half of our users are outside of the U.S." The initial catalog will include thousands of movies and TV show episodes, according to Plex executives, with plans to add many more over time. Some titles will only be streaming in some territories, while others are being made available everywhere. At launch, users will have access to movies like "Rain Man," "Teen Wolf," "The Terminator," "American Ultra," "Frequency," "Hard Candy," "Ghost in the Shell," and more. Plex's free-to-watch catalog will initially be more heavily focused on movies than TV shows, but the company plans to add more TV content in the coming months.

The media ecosystem is undergoing a massive change as streaming video looks to extend its recent dominance over traditional distribution, according to research firm MoffettNathanson, which wrote that a large minority of cable consumers could cut their subscriptions in coming years. From a report: "The video market is in full disruption and this year could be the cord cutting tipping point," analyst Michael Nathanson wrote to clients. "Media companies will need to master a whole new suite of skill sets to win going forward," with content creation, user interfaces and "churn mitigation strategies" among the factors that could determine the next generation of winners in the market. Consumers have been abandoning traditional media bundles for years, instead looking to services like Netflix or Walt Disney's recently launched Disney+ service, which has signed up more than 10 million subscribers since launching in November. Streaming services have made in-roads into a number of major categories of video entertainment, including TV shows and movies. In a measure of how big streaming has become, Wells Fargo Securities wrote that between November 17-23, "The Mandalorian," a series from Disney+ set in the "Star Wars" universe, was the "most in-demand show in OTT and overall on a linear+OTT basis." OTT stands for "over the top" content, which bypasses cable boxes. Linear TV airs at set times, as opposed to being on-demand, as with streaming.

Netflix's reboot of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 made this year's "Best Of" lists from both The New York Times and Rotten Tomatoes. Yet apparently their bosses didn't like them, and have shot them into space.

Forbes reports: In a controversial move poisoning Thanksgiving for many indie comedy fans, Mystery Science Theater 3000 host Jonah Ray tweeted that Netflix has cancelled the young reboot after two seasons... The reprise of Mystery Science Theater 3000 -- whose maiden incarnation made hordes of fans airing on Comedy Central and Syfy throughout the '90s -- ran on Netflix for two seasons and 20 episodes beginning in 2017 after a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign by creator Joel Hodgon fueled its return.

"We don't know what the future holds for the show," Ray added in a later tweet, "it always seemed to figure out how to survive. From Comedy Central to Syfy. Then kept alive by RIFFTRAX & Cinematic Titan. Whatever happens, I want everybody to know that getting a chance to be on this show was a dream come true." Shortly after news of the show's cancellation, Hodgson tweeted reassurance to fans that he'll look to revive the series elsewhere....

Earlier this month, Shout! Factory TV announced the debut of an MST3K Twitch channel that unspools the series and promises to feature "related programming...." Fans can also turn to Pluto TV's 24/7 MST3K channel to gorge on the series pre-Y2K catalogue (1988-99).

The MST3K staff is also currently on a sprawling 60-plus city tour that will stretch into March 2020. In 2008 Joel Hodgson, the show's creator, answered questions from Slashdot readers. "I've been a fan so long, I can't even remember when," posted CmdrTaco. "I've been shuttling my MST coffee mug from desk to desk for like 15 years now, so I'm pretty pumped that he'd waste your time with us."

In a gracious note this week, Hodgson emailed fans that "We've had a wonderful time working with the Netflix team, and will always be grateful to them. After all, they gave us the opportunity to spend the past few years aboard the Satellite of Love, and made it possible for new generations to discover the joys of riffing cheesy movies with your friends..."

In a Quartz article, Adam Epstein writes about the filmmaking technology used to film The Mandalorian on Disney+: Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) -- the Lucasfilm subsidiary George Lucas founded in 1975 to make the visual effects for Star Wars -- deployed a real-time 3D projection system called "Stagecraft" on the Disney+ series that could, eventually, replace green-screen as the film industry standard for rendering virtual environments. The company has been testing Stagecraft for five years -- most recently on the Star Wars spin-off movie Solo in 2018. But The Mandalorian, the flagship series on Disney's new streaming service, likely marks the most extensive use yet of the new system.

Stagecraft's chief innovation is that it can project a 3D visual environment around the actors that changes in real time to match the perspective of the camera. When the camera moves, the background moves too, simulating the experience of filming in a different location. It's a significant upgrade from green-screen technology, which requires the filmmakers layer in a static image or footage after filming in front of the blank backdrop. [...] The tech has a wide range of benefits. For starters, it can draw better performances from the actors, who don't have to imagine the environment they are in, as they do when filming in front of green-screen. They can instantly be transported to any location, real or made-up, and feel as though they are there. And that's another big advantage: Stagecraft allows films and TV shows to simulate environments without actually having to send an entire production there to film. "One downside is that the displays used in Stagecraft require liquid crystals that take several years to grow," the report adds. "Growing and maintaining these crystals, which are the backbone of LCD (liquid crystal display) screens, can be expensive and time-consuming, perhaps complicating the attempts of other companies to adapt the technology."

This video from Unreal Engine shows a smaller scale version of the tech in action.

Syd Mead, the artistic director on Blade Runner says Tesla's new Cybertruck "has completely changed the vocabulary of the personal truck market design."

Or, for another perspective, "Tesla's Cybertruck looks weird... like, really weird," wrote Toni Sacconaghi, a senior equity research analyst at the global asset management firm AllianceBernstein. "Add a little bit of dirt, and you could even say it gives off a retro-future vibe a la Mad Max."

That's from a Market Insider article citing Wall Street analysts they say "aren't buying the futuristic design of Tesla's new electric pickup truck." For example, Dan Levy of Credit Suisse, who wrote "amid the radical design for Cybertruck, it's somewhat unclear to us who the core buyer will be." "We do not see this vehicle in its current form being a success," Jeffrey Osborne of Cowen wrote in a note on Friday, adding that he doesn't see the Tesla brand or the Cybertruck design "resonating with existing pickup truck owners...."

Still, the Cybertruck's design wasn't unanimously disliked by Wall Street. The design "will be a hit with the company's fanatic EV installed base globally as Musk & Co. are clearly thinking way out of the box on this model design," Dan Ives of Wedbush wrote in a Friday note....

[And] "While styling will always be subjective, we believe the unique and futuristic design will resonate with consumers, leading to solid demand," Jed Dorsheimer of Canaccord Genuity wrote in a Friday note.
The article also quotes Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein as saying that the "really futuristic, like cyberpunk Blade Runner" design "is too bad, because its on-paper specs are insane."

But IGN reports there's another group commenting enthusiastically on the Cybertruck's looks: gamers. Unlike anything else we've seen from Musk's line of vehicles before, the Tesla truck resembles something you'd see in an old video game set in the future or sci-fi flick from the late '90s to the early 2000s.

Of course, gamers all over the internet couldn't help themselves from sharing images, making memes, and drawing comparisons to look-alikes we've seen in games, TV shows, and movies... According to the internet, the Tesla Cybertruck either hasn't finished rendering yet or is made of some very dated graphics. Either way, it takes us back to the days where we got to experience the famous low-poly Lara Croft.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The Justice Department said on Monday that it planned to overturn antitrust-related movie distribution rules from the early days of Hollywood (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), citing an entertainment landscape that has been radically reshaped by technology. "We cannot pretend that the business of film distribution and exhibition remains the same," Makan Delrahim, the antitrust chief at the Justice Department, said at an American Bar Association conference in Washington. "Changes over the course of more than half a century also have made it unlikely that the remaining defendants can reinstate their cartel."

The film distribution rules, known as the Paramount consent decrees, were enacted in 1949, a year after the United States Supreme Court ruled that Hollywood's eight largest studios could not own theaters, and thus control the film business. The regulations made it illegal for studios to unreasonably limit the number of theaters in one geographical area that could play a movie. They also banned "block booking," a bundling practice where studios forced theaters to play their bad movies along with their good ones or not play any. But that was when "metropolitan areas generally had a single movie theater with one screen that showed a single movie at a time," Mr. Delrahim said. "Today, not only do our metropolitan areas have many multiplex cinemas showing films from different distributors, but much of our movie-watching is not in theaters at all." In essence, he was saying that the regulations are obsolete because of technological advancements, most recently streaming. The National Association of Theater Owners said that abolishing the consent decrees could result in a return to block booking, which many smaller theater owners could not survive.

"If distributors can engage in block booking, exhibitors may be forced to pack their screens with global tentpoles at the expense of targeted programming," the association said in its submitted comments, referring to blockbuster films that now dominate the box office. "Consumers will face increasingly limited choices at the box office, and, without the possibility of a theatrical run, many films will no longer be made, limiting the availability of choices through home entertainment platforms as well."

The authors of a 2017 study which found that reading science fiction "makes you stupid" have conducted a follow-up that found that it's only bad sci-fi that has this effect: a well-written slice of sci-fi will be read just as thoroughly as a literary story. From a report: Two years ago, Washington and Lee University professors Chris Gavaler and Dan Johnson published a paper in which they revealed that when readers were given a sci-fi story peopled by aliens and androids and set on a space ship, as opposed to a similar one set in reality, "the science fiction setting triggered poorer overall reading" and appeared to "predispose readers to a less effortful and comprehending mode of reading -- or what we might term non-literary reading." But after critics suggested that merely changing elements of a mainstream story into sci-fi tropes did not make for a quality story, Gavaler and Johnson decided to revisit the research. This time, 204 participants were given one of two stories to read: both were called "Ada" and were identical apart from one word, to provide the strictest possible control. The "literary" version begins: "My daughter is standing behind the bar, polishing a wine glass against a white cloth." The science-fiction variant begins: "My robot is standing behind the bar, polishing a wine glass against a white cloth."

"On the 2-year anniversary of DC and Warner Bros.' Justice League, Wonder Woman and Batman themselves have joined fans' calls for the release of director Zack Snyder's cut of the much-maligned 2017 film," reports Entertainment Weekly: Both Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot tweeted "#ReleaseTheSnyderCut" on Sunday, with Gadot also posting a photo of her character, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman... Affleck and Gadot joined other DC actors, like Ray Fisher (Cyborg) and Christina Wren (Major Carrie Farris), who posted on social media for the anniversary to demand the release of Snyder's original vision for Justice League...

Jason Momoa and director Kevin Smith added fuel to the fire this summer after they said they've either seen the Snyder cut or heard about it from reliable sources. In August, Momoa posted an Instagram video with Snyder, saying the director had shown him the cut and that it was "ssssiiicccckkkkkk." Smith was less complimentary, saying the cut was "not a finished movie by any stretch of the imagination."

Still, it is a big deal that Justice League's own stars are calling for a redo of sorts.
Momoa, who plays Aquaman, said in early November "I think the public needs to see it," according to CNET. But The Hollywood Reporter isn't convinced that will happen.

"Despite the groundswell, and speculation that a Snyder Cut could go to Warner Bros.' upcoming streaming service HBO Max, insiders tell The Hollywood Reporter no announcement of a release of a Snyder Cut is imminent.

An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: Hackers didn't waste any time and have started hijacking Disney+ user accounts hours after the service launched. Many of these accounts are now being offered for free on hacking forums, or available for sale for prices varying from $3 to $11, a ZDNet investigation has discovered... Many users reported that hackers were accessing their accounts, logging them out of all devices, and then changing the account's email and password, effectively taking over the account and locking the previous owner out...

Two users who spoke with ZDNet on the condition we do not share their names admitted that they reused passwords. However, other users said online that they did not, and had used passwords unique for their Disney+ accounts. This suggests that in some cases hackers gained access to accounts by using email and password combos leaked at other sites, while in other cases the Disney+ credentials might have been obtained from users infected with keylogging or info-stealing malware.

The speed at which hackers have mobilized to monetize Disney+ accounts is astounding.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A simple glance at torrent websites shows that plenty of people are stealing from the brand new steaming services -- episodes of The Mandalorian and Dickinson all have hundreds or thousands of seeders and are among the most popular shows on torrent sites. I reached out specifically to Disney, Apple, and Netflix to ask what their policy was on going after pirated content, and haven't heard back, but it's obvious that these companies assume that at least some of their viewers aren't paying the full price for their services. Given that you can watch as many as six simultaneous streams with Apple TV+, and four with Disney+ and the top Netflix package, the more common form of piracy -- password sharing -- is built into the system. But for pirates who don't have any access to the legit services, what makes stealing content particularly appealing in this age is that there are few if any people who face consequences for the crime.

Since the discontinuation of the "six strikes" copyright policy in 2017, there's been lax enforcement of copyright laws. Rather than going after individuals for exorbitant fines for downloading a handful of songs like copyright holders did a decade ago, enforcement these days has focused on the providers of pirated content, with the much more efficient goal of taking down entire streaming sites rather than just a few of their visitors. Of course, as the continued resilience of The Pirate Bay shows, the current strategy isn't particularly effective at stopping piracy, either. But it does mean that those who only download already-stolen content are safer than they've ever been.

Freshly Exhumed shares a report from The Guardian: George Lucas, whose departure from all things Star Wars seems to have been greatly exaggerated -- appears to have yet again doctored the famous Greedo scene in 1977's Star Wars [prior to it being shown on the Disney+ streaming service]. The scene depicts the Mos Eisley cantina in which Harrison Ford's Han Solo is confronted by an alien bounty hunter and winds up shooting him dead in a brief flurry of blaster fire. It has been much discussed over the years, largely because Solo shot Greedo in cold blood in the original, "Han shot first" 1977 cut, while in later versions Lucas re-edited the footage to depict Greedo as the aggressor, with Han returning fire in self-defense. Many fans have speculated about what effect that subtle change had on Han's transformation in the original trilogy from cold-hearted hustler to hero of the resistance. Now Lucas has tinkered all over again, to further muddy the waters.

As seen on new streaming service Disney+, the scene features Han and Greedo shooting at roughly the same moment -- to be fair, this is a change introduced several years back. But now, Greedo appears to utter the phrase "MacClunkey!" before succumbing to his wounds. Reports suggest Lucas made the changes some years ago, perhaps around the time he sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4 billion, in 2012. Celebrities such as Stephen King and Patton Oswalt have speculated about what the re-edit means for the future of Star Wars, though nobody seems to have much of a clue.