LOST Spoiler Leaks?

Thanks to BuddyTV for this insightful look into how the writers feel about the major spoiler leaks for the last two episodes for season three -

When LOST’s Season Three finale twist was revealed weeks in advance, the vast internet fan community for ABC’s hit show was divided between those who thought such information was an entitlement, and those who felt it shouldn’t exist at all. As LOST Season Four looms on the horizon, the backlash from the production end of things has finally reared its head. How did the producers react to the leak, and what plans do they have to keep LOST Season Four under wraps?
Lost producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse popped up individually this week at E!Online and TvGuide.com respectively to address the awful incident of spoiling, which took place weeks prior to the airing of LOST’s finale.

Lindelof described his philosophy on the leak to E!’s Kristin Veatch “…no one skips to the end of life. You have to live it, and it's just disappointing to me that people don't respect the integrity of the show enough to let it unfold naturally.”

Lindelof, the co-creator of LOST, went on to say this about how LOST Season Four information will be disseminated “Well, with regard to [LOST] season four, Carlton and I are going into complete and utter radio silence. I know a lot of people are going to be frustrated, but I think if things had gone a little differently in terms of the finale getting spoiled, we might have been a little more open to talking about it.” His later comments, though, were self mocking and indicated that the reason for the silence is more to suspend the audience in this state of vertigo over where the show was going, and not about getting revenge against those that spoiled the finale’s big surprise.

Over at the Ausiello Report on TvGuide.com, however, Carlton Cuse, the co-show runner, indicated that while the producers may be limiting themselves to well tempered displays of disappointment, the brass at Disney are the path of Vengeance. When Ausiello asked Cuse whether they knew who spread the info or not, Cuse replied “Disney security is trying to establish a full and complete list of all of the people through whose hands the show passed, We did everything we felt we could do.”

What could this mean for the fan community leading up to LOST Season Four? If Disney has a heightened sense of the damage to the property, it could conceivably set up a DMCA hit squad to take down sites that have a tendency to be too loose with LOST Season Four spoilers. In reality, ABC and other networks tolerate a lot of unauthorized use of copyrighted materials such as videos, logos, and pictures. Exercising their rights as copyright holders, Disney could make spoiler sites pay aesthetically for crossing the line, and in some cases, the removal of copyrighted material could conceivably cause a site to shut down. Unauthorized set photographs, the essence of many spoilers for instance, can sometimes be considered copyright violations.

Overall, even with a lightened tone, it appears that LOST Season Four will present a more tight lipped creative team and, likely, a more locked down production than previous seasons.