Warner Bros. Sues Innovative Artists Over Screener Leak
Warner Bros. filed suit today against Innovative Artists Talent and Literary Agency, alleging that the talent agency put awards screeners on in-house Google Drive account, allowing them to leak to file-sharing sites.
The suit states that two WB films — “Creed” and “In the Heart of the Sea” — appeared online in December 2015, after the studio distributed screeners. Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, which provides “content security” for studios, notified Warner Bros that the films had been pirated and that the watermarks traced back to an Innovative Artists’ client.
According to the suit, Innovative Artists would routinely rip DVD screeners intended for clients and upload them to a shared Google Drive account. Numerous people inside and outside the company had access to the films on the account, including managers, friends and relatives. On one occasion, the agency gave an assistant who worked at another company access to the account in exchange for a screener that was not already in the database.
Innovative Artists did not immediately return a call seeking comment. However, it appears from the lawsuit that the agency cooperated with Warner Bros. when notified of the leak. The agency shut down the Google Drive account — which had been active for only a month — and provided user logs to Warner Bros. According to the logs, more than 20 people downloaded the films from the account over a five-day period.
In the suit, Warner Bros. called the shared account “blatantly illegal,” and alleged that should have been obvious to a talent agency whose clients’ livelihoods depend on copyright protection. The suit seeks monetary damages and an injunction that would bar Innovative Artists from establishing a similar file-sharing arrangement in the future.
Deadline Hollywood was first to report the news.
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