Hollywood studios form tech group to fight piracy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood's six major film studios on Monday unveiled a technology venture to find new ways of protecting movies from illegal copying and distribution in black markets or over the Internet.

Motion Picture Laboratories, or Movielabs, will look for new technologies to detect illegal videotaping of films in theatres and evaluate new computer hardware and software that is being used by networks to distribute films.

The venture's goal is to discover technologies that combat piracy then recommend their use to universities, companies, internet service providers and other network operators, the groups said in a statement from the Motion Picture Association of America.

The movie studios figure they lose as much as US$3.5 billion a year in revenues due to the illegal copying of movies on videotape and DVD, and they are deeply concerned about possible further losses due to digital distribution via the Internet.

Movielabs founding owners are Walt Disney's Walt Disney Pictures and Television, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, News Corp's Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp, Sony's Sony Pictures Entertainment, General Electric's Universal City Studios and Time Warner's Warner Bros Entertainment.

The new venture will headquarter in Los Angeles and operate as an independent, non-profit corporation.

Financial details were not disclosed.