Lasse Penttinen
7 Jul 2004 11:04
As preview copies of movies, widely known as screening copies or screeners, constantly leak to the internet, the movie industry is planning a to implement a much stronger hardware based copy protection. The new scheme includes special DVD player hardware, watermarking, and inserting contact information to the image.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has endorsed a plan to distribute about 6,000 special DVD players to members. Specially encrypted discs, known as screeners, would be earmarked for a specific academy voter and would play only on that person's machine. The player also would imprint an invisible watermark on the disc each time it is viewed. In addition, if someone uses a camcorder to tape the movie as it is playing on a monitor, that image would contain information on the person assigned the machine.Source: EMediaLive
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The success of that effort led Cinea Inc., a division of Dolby Laboratories, to approach the academy about a combination of encryption and watermarking so studios could once again distribute screeners on DVDs.