Harry Knowles, the internet gossip columinst behind Aint-It-Cool-News has offered an apology to the The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after printing an incorrect list of Oscar nominees the day before the official list came out.

The creator of the cult site now admits that the list was indeed taken from the computer of a freelance writer for ABC.com who was preparing to load a story immediately after the real nominations were announced. Of the faux-pas, which caused a media frenzy and some very red faces in the Academy, an equally red-faced Knowles says his source was, "just some guy out there that thought he found something really cool, got excited, overstated his material and sent it to me."

"There was never an attempt on an Academy computer," he explains. "The nominations were never in any danger. And both PricewaterhouseCoopers (the accounting firm that counts the votes) and the Academy can sleep well at night knowing that at no point was there any failure in their security." Unfortunately, despite Harry's protestations, the Academy is still considering legal action.