Spreading copies around ad-hoc isn’t a backup plan.
They have redundancy and backups.
> Unless the insurance is anti-piracy insurance?
This is a big part of it, actually. Content that leaks prior to launch can reduce revenues significantly. Both from lost viewership due to people already having seen it, and from negative reviews of the unfinished early edits. Many movies change significantly for the better from early cuts.
The comment I was replying to made it sound like this was insurance purely for recorded footage being destroyed, and not it being leaked. The former is very easy to fix by having everyone's workstations keep a copy of what they're working on[0]. But the more copies you have, the easier it is for the footage to leak. The two risks impose different and conflicting mitigation measures.
[0] Remember that one time Pixar rm -rf'd their server and almost lost Toy Story 2 but for one manager who had a local copy of the project at home?
They have redundancy and backups.
> Unless the insurance is anti-piracy insurance?
This is a big part of it, actually. Content that leaks prior to launch can reduce revenues significantly. Both from lost viewership due to people already having seen it, and from negative reviews of the unfinished early edits. Many movies change significantly for the better from early cuts.