December 11, 2007

Digital Code to combat movie piracy being developed in Japan

by yogesh

Piracy of movies a global issue; no movie industry is free from this bug. In a bid to curb piracy, Japan’s state broadcaster, NHK, has teamed up with Mitsubishi Electric to create an anti-piracy system that will hopefully end movie copying from cinemas. The system will work in this manner; a digital watermark will be added to films shown from a digital projector. The watermark will contain info like the cinema house name and even what time the screening was held. We all know that pirated films not only rob the producers of legitimate revenue but are of poor quality also. How this new system will deter offenders is not yet clear, but any step in this anti-piracy is a great.

Apparently the worlds biggest film industry-Bollywood (Mumbai-India), has already got a similar system in place, where a digital code is put on the film screened, so that cinema-hall details and screened timings can be traced.
Source