Encrypted DVDs Unlikely to Be Used for ‘Screeners’

With Oscar campaigns getting underway, some of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios say they will not send out specially encrypted DVDs intended to thwart piracy because the technology is still unproven.

Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures, News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks cited delays in delivery of a machine that plays the encrypted movies. In just weeks, the studios are scheduled to begin sending out so-called screeners -- free copies of movies that members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences use to help them decide how to cast their Oscar votes. Other movie studios said privately that they are also unlikely to employ the new technology.

The academy earlier this year had embraced the new technology in the battle against piracy. It said it would permit Cinea, a unit of Dolby Laboratories Inc., to send the machines to the academy’s voting members. But the DVD machines have yet to roll off the production line, and the studios still have not had an opportunity to test them.

Executives at a number of studios said the delay left them with no choice. They said they need to act soon to get their orders fulfilled if they are going to use an alternative anti-piracy technology, such as watermarked videos or DVDs.

“We’ve got to do what’s right for our pictures in the time frame that makes sense,” Jeff Blake, vice chairman of Sony Pictures, said. “Apart from not having the machines, there are some questions” about how the new technology would function.

Executives are concerned, for example, that some academy members would have difficulty setting up the machines. In academy competition, where a small margin of votes can be crucial, the possibility that some members would be unable to view a film was a major problem, one executive said.

Cinea Vice President Laurence Roth said the company has been trying to meet “a very ambitious schedule” and is still making “tweaks” to its software.

Cinea still plans to send out thousands of machines, free of charge, to academy members and some other groups that bestow awards. The units cost about $500 each to manufacture.

Many studio executives were glad to have a reason to avoid signing on for the encryption technology. Many didn’t like the fact that the machines weigh 11 pounds, not exactly portable. That was a serious drawback for executives and academy members, many of whom are traveling to Aspen, Hawaii and other vacation hotspots during the holiday period and want to bring the screeners along.