Word: studio
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...Studio executives feel so threatened by piracy that they do not even like to dignify it with the word. "It's a word that has a swashbuckling, cool kind of feel, and that's not what we're talking about. This isn't Johnny Depp on the front of a boat," says Barry Meyer, chairman of Warner Bros. "It's theft. It's shoplifting. It's grand larceny...
...weekend of the sneak preview, Brandon got hourly updates from the studio's Internet-monitoring firm, hoping not to hear that Samurai had been scattered across the globe. The off-site security firm (which requested that it not be named) scanned file-trading networks 24 hours a day. It can fire off letters warning Internet service providers about misbehaving users, but its main weapon is the decoy file, which it dispatched by the tens of thousands. Downloaders spent hours pulling down the bait, only to find a mess of ones and zeros. Bored wannabe pirates added to the mass distraction...
...fact, it wasn't until Dec. 6 that Brandon finally got the dreaded call. Around 2 p.m., he learned that Samurai was online, just one day after its release in theaters. In this day and age, that is a victory--which reflects how badly the studios are losing the war. That first pirate of Samurai was from a camcorder copy made in a U.S. theater on the day the movie premiered. Warner Bros. has identified the theater using tracking codes hidden in the film but declined to reveal the information, citing ongoing legal investigations. After years of resisting the hard...
Universal unblocked the serial code and quickly traced the copy to Gonzalez. The studio pushed for the maximum sentence of one year in federal prison, claiming the piracy had cost it an estimated $66 million (a spokeswoman declined to explain how that figure was calculated). Gonzalez now has a job selling cars. He must wear an electronic-monitoring bracelet around his ankle to ensure he goes only to work and then home. "People will come by once in a while," he says, "but I find myself watching TV and playing video games a lot of the time." He says...
...Studios have been loath to acknowledge their own holes in the security net. A 2003 study led by a group of AT&T researchers found that 77% of online pirated films came from weak links within the movie business itself--from Academy members to critics to cinema projectionists. The report was criticized by studio execs, who found its definition of movie insiders overly broad. Nevertheless, this past year, some studios have started quietly inserting hidden markers in screeners that identify the owners. Under a new pledge, which 80% of Academy members have signed, anyone found to have leaked a screener...