As the old-school letter writers say, I’ve been reading with interest the tale of the leaked “Wolverine” workprint, which hit the interwebs on April Fool’s Day to the understandable shame and rage of 20th Century Fox.

I figured it was a joke; the movie’s theatrical release was a month away, it was April 1st, what else could it be? But then certain film sites started talking about the specific attributes of the downloadable file — unfinished effects shots, ragged audio in certain scenes, that sort of thing — that sounded awfully convincing.

And then, on April 3rd, Roger Friedman — a professional journalist person employed by the corporation that produced the movie — wrote about how he’d illegally downloaded the movie, and how easy it was to do so, and how it was pretty great. Fox has scrubbed the post in question from its website, but you can find it here, sort of.

Let’s back up a moment, shall we? Roger Friedman works for Fox News, and Roger Friedman downloaded a copy of “Wolverine”, and Roger Friedman used his paid position to tell all his readers how easy it was to do so, without any apparent understanding that it is illegal to do that sort of thing, or perhaps that his employers might be a little sensitive about that.

Sooo … Roger Friedman is no longer employed by Fox, obviously. He’s kind of an idiot, and a terrible entertainment columnist, so this is not a tragedy in any sense. But now I have to ask the uncomfortable question: Did Friedman download the movie at work, using Fox’ own servers? And since Fox is aggressively pursuing all illegal downloading and piracy, does that mean they have to impound their own networks as evidence and subpoena their IT people in the civil suit against themselves? That’d be all kinds of awesome, wouldn’t it?

Full disclosure: I have no interest in the “Wolverine” workprint, and am waiting for a theatrical screening of the finished film. Because that’s how you’re supposed to see movies, after all.