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LOS ANGELES – Every assemblage around now, tens of thousands of DVDs of movies ease playing in theaters are dispatched by tone studios to Oscar, Golden Globe and another awards voters.

Every year, some of these discs are copied, and the movies end up existence mutual online, where they crapper revilement into theater-ticket and DVD sales.

This time, studios are attractive a newborn approach to prevent this kind of piracy, and technology is playing a bounteous part.

Ahead of Sunday's Screen Actors Guild awards, Fox Searchlight this period became the prototypal flat to have nearly 100,000 SAG voters analyse newborn movies much as "Black Swan" finished a liberated download from Apple Inc.'s iTunes store. Paramount Pictures, Focus Features and another studios did the aforementioned after with movies much as "The Fighter" and "The Kids Are All Right."

In every cases, downloads are set to suspire 24 hours after existence viewed and are not available to the public.

As an anti-piracy tool, realistic screenings are cheaper and simpler than instance efforts. For digit thing, they remove the venture of discs going absent or existence stolen. In cases where discs intend pirated, the actual uploading is typically finished by someone individual steps distant from the recipient, ofttimes without that person's knowledge, according to flat executives and accumulation enforcement officials.

But digital screeners won't necessarily be a deliverer either. People determined to break the accumulation will find a way, modify if it comes downbound to transcription a digital flick by pointing a accepted recording camera at the computer screen.

"Copying a stream is modify easier than duplicating a DVD," Ernesto Van Der Sar, the founder of robbery programme site TorrentFreak, said in an e-mail interview. "Moving to moving might intend the revealing evaluate downbound but I crapper also wager scenarios where it will advance to more leaks."

Nonetheless, studios conceive they staleness try newborn approaches to combat piracy.

The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that $25 1000000000 globally is forfeited to it every year, and it is part answerable for U.S. DVD income falling from a extreme in 2006 at $20.2 1000000000 to most $14 1000000000 in 2010.

Although the business assemble says most of the damage comes from handheld recording camera recordings in theaters around the world, awards screeners are ease a problem.

In the past, studios went as farther as sending voters specialized players armored with stronger double protections than lawful DVDs, but that grouping was forsaken eld past as existence likewise troublesome.

So most studios continue to beam discs to voters by accumulation — as some as 20,000 per movie. And the venture of leaks remains.

Oscar screeners dispatched discover in late 2008 were the source of online bootlegs of "Slumdog Millionaire," "Australia," and "The Curious Case of patriarch Button." Investigators followed the dawdle of unequalled round identifiers titled watermarks and guilty digit men of felony papers infringement.

In October, a screener of Summit Entertainment's "Red" was derived and posted online a period before the flick impact theaters. Investigators derived the revealing to a double dispatched to the exhibit "LIVE! With Regis & Kelly," the second instance in quaternary months the exhibit was answerable for a revealing of a flick that was in theaters.

The Walt Disney Co., which produces the "Regis" show, has since tightened procedures, and today only a some key employees crapper obtain screeners low tight restrictions.

The penalisation for uploading movies to websites crapper reach up to threesome eld in situation and a fine for first-time offenders, but the penalties intend stiffer for move offenders or those with a profit motive.

The Justice Department guilty 207 people for intellectual property thieving crimes in business 2010, which ended Sept. 30, downbound from 287 in 2007. Cases involving awards screeners turn to "a containerful every year," according to Assistant U.S. Attorney reverend Hsu in Los Angeles.

Kaye Cooper-Mead, an honcho evilness chair at Summit Entertainment, aims to instill a significance of warn among recipients of awards screeners so they don't let the discs intend pirated by others. They requirement to understand "how some jillions of dollars that digit DVD is worth," she said.

Studios are further along in weaning another reviewers soured discs. Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures are having hoteliers, retailers and airline and cruise ship clients check movies on bonded websites before they make a selection to authorise the movies for guests or carry them in stores.

Sony Pictures' honcho technology officer, Mitch Singer, said the flat would decimate physical screeners for retail and welcome clients within a year.

But it haw be some instance before every awards shows go digital. Prestige and profits are attached to an awards win, especially for movies ease in theaters. Some studios would rather beam discover DVDs and venture a revealing than irritate voters by making them check on a computer or ambulatory device.

"I don't undergo how thrilled filmmakers would be to have their films seen on a laptop instead of a flat-screen TV," said king Kaplan, a senior evilness chair of anti-piracy at Warner Bros., whose flick "Inception" is up for an accolade for prizewinning picture.

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