Officials expel Academy member after 'screener' copies were shared

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The group that hands out the Academy Awards has kicked out a member for leaking special videotapes of Oscar-contending movies in violation of new rules to keep them out of general circulation.
The board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to expel the member earlier this week. Academy spokesman John Pavlik said the group was not disclosing the member's name.
Academy officials said the member violated an agreement Oscar voters were required to sign that prohibits them from sharing "screener" copies that studios provide of their awards contenders.
The agreement was put in place last fall over studio concerns that screener copies could be used to make pirated movie videos. The deal allowed studios to encode screeners so pirated copies could be traced back to their original recipients.
Investigators said last month that Academy member Carmine Caridi, a 70-year-old actor, admitted sending screener copies to a friend in Chicago. Copies of several films that turned up on the Internet were traced back to Caridi's screeners, investigators said.
Pavlik said the academy would not disclose if Caridi was the expelled member. Calls to Caridi's attorneys went unreturned.