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Deadline Hollywood has the details on how Fox News entertainment columnist Roger Friedman got canned for advocating watching illegally pirated television and movies for free online. Friedman posted a positive review of the as-of-yet unreleased Wolverine after finding it online, and wrote Friday in a now-deleted article about the awesome variety of free streaming media available. It sounds like he was genuinely surprised at how easy it was to find online TV and movies and stupidly enthused about it in his column, drawing the ire of his bosses and leading to his prompt termination. Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which also counts 20th Century Fox and Fox Television among its holdings:
News Corp like all major Hollywood studios takes the crime of piracy very seriously. Nor will the Fox parent company tolerate it if its employees don’t. Especially after a stolen, early and unfinished work print of 20th Century Fox’s big summer blockbuster X-Men Origins: Wolverine was put onto the Internet illegally this week in a major scandal that the FBI is now investigating. So there was universal shock on Friday when long-time “Fox 411″ freelance columnist Roger Friedman wrote what I’m told his bosses felt was a blatant promotion of piracy on his Fox News web outlet. Besides writing a review from watching the purloined print of Wolverine, Friedman posted, “I did find the whole top 10 [movies in theaters], plus TV shows, commercials, videos, everything, all streaming away. It took really less than seconds to start playing it all right onto my computer. I could have downloaded all of it but really, who has the time or the room? Later tonight I may finally catch up with Paul Rudd in I Love You, Man. It’s so much easier than going out in the rain!” I’m told that Fox News’ actions were swift and severe. First, Roger Ailes, who oversees Fox News, deleted the offending post after he was contacted by 20th Century Fox about it. And then Ailes fired Friedman as a freelance Fox News entertainment writer. I hear the move was done with the full support of News Corp. “He promoted piracy. He basically suggested that viewing a stolen film is OK, which is absolutely intolerable. So we fired him,” a source told me Saturday. “Fox News acted promptly on all fronts.”
Friedman has written his gossip column, “Fox 411″, for FoxNews.com for more than a decade and peppers it with celebrity items, industry news, and off-the-cuff movie reviews. He has long been a controversial writer who quite frequently angers the publicity machine surrounding actors, directors, producers, studios, celebrities, movies and TV. Occasionally he has scoops, especially about the music biz. Still, how could he not have known that his writings Friday would hit a nerve with his employers. After Friedman’s column on FoxNews.com appeared, both News Corp and Fox condemned it as “promoting a pirated version of Wolverine”.
News Corp issued this statement: “Roger Friedman’s views in no way reflect the views of News Corporation. We, along with 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, have been a consistent leader in the fight against piracy and have zero tolerance for any action that encourages and promotes piracy. Once we learned of Roger Friedman’s post we asked Fox News to remove it, which they did immediately.”
And 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.”
[From Nikki Finch's Deadline Hollywood]
It was incredibly stupid of Friedman to advocate watching pirated movies and television shows and he should have thought about it before posting his story. It’s surprising that that an editor or someone else didn’t catch this for him before it was published. If he’s a freelance journalist he should have someone who reads his articles before they’re posted. Maybe he’s worked for Fox for so long that they let him have free reign.
Friedman recently trashed Julia Roberts for being “rude, downright nasty, and dismissive” to him at the Duplicity premiere in New York. He doesn’t seem to censor himself well, and it ultimately cost him his job. It’s likely his bosses were just looking for a reason to let him go.
Written by Celebitchy
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8 Responses to “Fox News columnist fired for advocating illegal downloading”
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Whatever about watching pirated material, how can he be so out of touch with reality that he publicly advocates illegal downloading?!
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The movie companies, like the record companies, are putting their finger in a dike.
People want to be able to watch current movies at home, quickly and conveniently. They don’t want to wait 6 months or drive to Blockbuster.
If the filmmakers offered a home streaming option at a reasonable cost, many consumers – iTunes types like me – would purchase viewings legally. They don’t offer legal streaming, so people download.
Granted, “Wolverine” might have been a bit TOO current, since it wasn’t yet finished or released.
But the movie companies can rant and rave about illegal downloads all they like. The problem is not going to go away. Laws and marketing just haven’t caught up with technology.
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I should have said, They don’t offer legal streaming, so people stream illegally.
Didn’t mean to confuse downloading and streaming. I miss that wonderful “revision” option this site used to have.
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Even though Fox pulled the review and fired him right away, I bet they’re still going to get hit with a massive lawsuit from the movie studios for “promoting” illegal downloading.
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“Advocate?” Bullshit. He didn’t say go out and pirate stuff, all he said was how it easy it was to download everything, which is a fact everyone on the damn internet knows.
That said, GO ROGER! I bet if _all_ media companies were forced to do an audit of their employees’ computers, they’d find millions of illegal MP3s.
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I dislike him for so many reasons.. Too many to list. Glad his a$$ is out..
Karma is Bit$h.. He has written some nasty little articles about some of my favorite celebs. I am laughing my A$$ off big time..
Now see how the economy treats HIM..
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He is a douche big time. He has got his just desserts, and long overdue. Karma
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Key words being he writes a “gossip column” and his opinion should be allowed in such a format. so much for free speech. they could have just had a disclaimer before his program saying “fox does not condone or necessarily agree with statements made by this program”
Think they took it too far.
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