Disney Encrypting Screener DVDs to Prevent Piracy

Still having last years Oscar controversy in mind, where one judge handed out copies to a person he thought was another film buff. This person unfortunately decided to copy and spread the films on the internet.

The DVD screeners that Disney will send to the groups that vote on the awards will be encrypted and will only run on DVD players made by Cinea, who are specially designed to thwart copying the screeners.

Furthermore the DVD screeners are encrypted with the recipients name. Even if one would be able to make a copy the name would still be somewhere encrypted in the movie.

Sony Studios and Universal Pictures, two other global players, already commented on Disney’s move and declared that they won´t use the Cinea service for their dvd screeners.

In recent years the studios began to encrypt or watermark their movies with special codes in order to trace back the the person who received the screener and started the copying process.

With other studios not joining Disney might face serious troubles because it might limit the number of voters who actually see their films.

Disney already decided to hold special private screenings for awards groups, to compensate for the loss of viewers.

Update: Here is a spreadsheet that is updated every year with information about movies nominated for an Oscar, dates they were released, the first screener and cam were leaked and the time between the two events.

The leak situation has not changed a lot in recent years. Many Oscar nominated movies are still being leaked before the ceremony, according to the spreadsheet.

Recent years have seen a slight decrease in screeners being released before the ceremony, but this may be the result of more movies being released as retail DVDs before the ceremony takes place.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Wednesday October 26, 2005 -
Tags:awards, cinea, disney, dvd, movie, oscar, screener