One of the perks of being a member of SAG or the Academy or another industry group is all the free movies they send you. Similarly, when you're a talk show host you get sent movies and TV shows so that you can prepare for your movie- and TV-star guests.
But those advance copies, many of which are now delivered digitally these days, come with very visible warnings that the screeners are for the viewing pleasure of the intended recipients only.
And the studios are keeping track.
When The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in its entirety hit the Internet this week, eagle-eyed blogger Andy Baio noticed the following watermark: "Ellen DeGeneres 11/26/13." (Baio even made a GIF of it flashing on the screen.)
The watermark, rather than just a warning and a serial number, indicated that it was an advance copy sent to her to watch before she hosted director-star Ben Stiller on Ellen.
Obviously, no one really thinks that Ellen burned Walter Mitty willy-nilly, or that she let anyone else do so willingly.
Ellen producers are looking into what did happen, however.
"Our show is sent advanced screeners of movies, sitcoms, reality shows, cds, etc. before guests appear on our show," read a joint statement obtained by E! News from the show's executive producers. "We do everything we can to protect the content and in 11 seasons nothing has ever leaked online from our show.
"We're not sure if this leaked from our show or not, but we are doing everything we can to find out and to make sure it never happens again."
But its not as if the unwitting Ellen or Walter Mitty are alone.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was officially named the most-pirated film of 2013 by Torrent Freak, based on how many times it was shared on BitTorrent, followed by Django Unchained and Fast and Furious 6.
Game of Thrones topped the list of pirated TV shows with 5.9 million downloads and Breaking Bad was a distant second with 4.2 million.