Movie industry to move online to beat pirates

LONDON (Reuters) - The film industry is working to launch online movie download services to avoid the same fate as the piracy-ridden music industry, NBC Universal chairman and chief executive Bob Wright said on Tuesday.

"It's something we have to do, but it has to be done well," Wright said, "These movies are so expensive we have to be careful...We're pretty close. Hopefully by the end of this year we'll be able to do that."

Wright was speaking at the launch of an anti-piracy and counterfeiting initiative with senior executives from media, software, pharmaceutical and food industries known as "Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy" (BASCAP).

Other participants included Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer, Nestle's Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Vivendi Universal's Jean-Rene Fourtou and EMI Group's Eric Nicoli.

"The problems are spreading and no one is immune," Wright said. "In my business we're just looking over the shoulder of the music industry, which has gone through a very difficult time."

The global music industry has been decimated by physical piracy and online file-trading networks. It has stemmed some of the losses by aggressively targeting illicit file-sharers with lawsuits while also offering legal online alternatives like Apple's iTunes Music Store.

Movies are increasingly vulnerable to online piracy due to the spread of high-speed internet connections and file-sharing technologies like BitTorrent. Eight people were charged last week for stealing a copy of "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" and posting it online before the movie appeared in theatres.

There are already at least two fledgling online movie stores: Movielink, which is a venture of five major Hollywood studios, and CinemaNow, which is jointly owned by Lions Gate Entertainment, Microsoft, Blockbuster and several private equity firms.

Wright also spoke about the battle over next-generation DVD technology. Universal Studios, a unit of NBC Universal, and Warner Bros Studios have endorsed the HD DVD format, while Paramount, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney and Twentieth Century Fox have backed the rival Blu-ray format.

"You'd always rather have one standard -- that's going to happen eventually," he said. "Hopefully this won't go as far as (the) Betamax-VHS (video tape format battle)."