Has Fox fired blogger who dared review illegally-downloaded version of Wolverine movie?

07 Apr 2009 | 10.39 Europe/London

An entertainment blogger has reportedly been sacked from his role at FoxNews.com after he published a positive review of the leaked X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. The studio behind the film is FoxNews' sister firm, 20th Century Fox. The Fox companies belong to News Corporation, whose founder, Chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch, last week accused both Google and Yahoo! of piracy.

Roger Friedman, who was a Fox columnist for ten years, put the Wolverine amongst the Foxes with his 411 blog post. "Right now my cousins at 20th Century Fox are probably having apoplexy," he wrote. "But everyone can relax. I am, in fact, amazed at how great Wolverine turned out to be. I found a work in progress print of it on the internet last night. Let's hope by now it's gone."

However, it looks like News Corp. has not been relaxing. The FBI has been called in to uncover the guilty party who leaked the movie onto the Internet – and Friedman has been sacked, with his former employers claiming he has glorified and promoted piracy. The version of the film that he reviewed – which lacks special effects and where the wires used for stunts are still visible – hit the internet a month before Wolverine is due to be released at the cinema. Hundreds of thousands of people have already downloaded it and it is thought the leak could cost 20^thCentury Fox millions at the box office. (Of course, the leak has generated a lot of free publicity for the movie – and its unlikely mainstream audiences will be able to get their hands on, or settle for, the unfinished version – so this is by no means certain.)

Fanboy bloggers, who have been calling for boycotts of websites that posted early reviews of the film, were actually among the first to call for Friedman's head. One site, RopeofSilicon.com, posted a screen shot of his review along with the comment, "Where does FoxNews.com come up with the balls to publish a review of an unfinished illegal copy of a film their sister company is so desperately trying to squelch the existence of?"

20th Century Fox issued the following statement: "This behaviour is reprehensible and we condemn this act categorically -- whether the review is good or bad." News Corp. issued another, which said: "We have been a consistent leader in the fight against piracy and have zero tolerance for any action that encourages and promotes piracy. When we advised Fox News of the facts they took immediate action, removed the post, and promptly terminated Mr. Friedman." As yet, there has been no confirmation from Friedman himself that he has been fired – he recently denied it to American magazine Variety.

So what does it all mean? It shows even big-name bloggers – who attract a lot of traffic – are not untouchable, and that the idea of a blogging community could be wearing thin, especially if it is fellow bloggers who are drawing the battle lines. Oh, and that downloading movies at work is a bad idea – especially if you want to get paid for it.

[ Variety ]