The success of an anti-piracy campaign is measured in the number of hours it buys before the digital dam breaks.
"One of the reasons why it's so important to try to protect the first weekend is that it prevents the pirate supply chain from starting," said Darcy Antonellis, president of Warner's distribution and technical operations. "A day or two becomes really, really significant. You've delayed disc manufacturing that then delays distribution, which then delays those discs from ending up on street corners for sale."
Piracy experts say such tight security measures are now commonplace among studios seeking to protect big-budget summer blockbusters.
Studios fear a reprise of the "Hulk" piracy debacle. A rough, early version of Ang Lee's 2003 summer movie made its way to the Internet two weeks before the film's scheduled premiere, provoking negative reactions from the comic-book film's devoted fans, whose opinion carries far more weight in determining the success of this film genre than that of mainstream film critics.
"A lot of people decided not to go near it. Hollywood argued, correctly, that many more people would have gone to see it, had online buzz not been so critical of the movie," said Eric Garland, chief executive of BigChampagne Online Media Measurement, which monitors file-sharing networks and is a consultant to the entertainment industry.
"Hulk" still had an impressive opening, grossing $62 million in its first weekend. But by the second week, mediocre reviews and corrosive word of mouth pushed grosses down 70%. The studios aren't eager to give the audience advance -- and uncontrolled -- viewings of its tent-pole films.
"If the movie's a stiff, and word gets out too early that it's a stiff, it's devastating to the business model," Garland said.
Paul Kocher, president of Cryptography Research Inc., a San Francisco company that develops anti-piracy technology, said that unlike with music, one viewing of a film -- even in blurry, camcorded form -- often is enough.
"With rare exception, once you've seen the movie you're unlikely to watch it a second time," Kocher said. "You don't have the benefit the music guys have, that piracy can help build buzz. For the movie industry, it's purely a destructive force."
Studios use tracking methods to keep tabs on who handles a film and when, and mark the prints sent to theaters. That makes it possible to identify where a pirated copy was recorded, Kocher said.
