1. If all the sounds
of the blockbuster Man of Steel were stripped away, a light
humming would still be heard in the theater. The barely audible noise
is an audio watermark intended to be Kryptonite for the digital pirates
who circulate illegal copies of movies. Designed by engineers at Verance
Corp., (www.verance.com)
the watermark is a unique signal to Blu-ray disc players that the movie
being watched was illegally recorded at a movie theater. After 20 minutes
of playing the disc the player shuts the movie down and offers the viewer
the chance to continue watching by paying through legitimate sources
like Amazon.com and Netflix.
Another system, PirateEye, (www.pirateeye.com)
uses technology adapted from the military to detect the presence of
recording devices and then send pictures of the offenders to theater
security. If a movie has been copied from one disc to another, the Blu-ray
player can tell if a watermark doesn't match up with the disc's unique
encryption code.
As the window for theatrical release shrinks, studios
are becoming more anxious about keeping their movies from hitting the
black market soon after hitting the multiplex. Wall Street Journal 13Au13

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