Now it's King Kong versus the pirates

Universal Pictures guards King Kong carefully. Picture / Reuters

Universal Pictures is "watermarking" and encrypting copies of the new King Kong film - made for it in New Zealand by director Peter Jackson - in a bid to beat piracy.

But even the mighty Kong may not be safe from the clutches of a nebulous, tech-savvy network of film pirates who specialise in stealing copies of first-run movies and distributing them globally on the internet or on bootleg DVDs, the New York Times reports.

Universal Pictures is taking care of its US$150 million ($217 million) blockbuster, a remake of the 1933 sci-fi classic featuring an overgrown beast with a soft spot for blondes.

It is supervising access to King Kong during all phases of its production and plans to police advance screenings of the film, due to premiere just before Christmas.

"Watermarks" can identify individual prints of films so that pirated copies can be traced to a specific distribution list or even a specific theatre.

Technical advances in digital recording has made piracy more sophisticated and elusive - and a far bigger financial threat.

"It's hard to say exactly what amount of money is involved, but it's huge," said Bob Wright, chairman and chief executive of NBC Universal, the parent company of Universal Pictures. "It's not in the hands of kids who live next door, it's organised crime."

But despite recent crackdowns on piracy, and efforts by film studios to block thefts of review DVDs provided to the news media, some commentators in Hollywood believe the film industry is fighting an uphill battle.

Jackson does not believe piracy can be easily beaten.

"Fighting fire with fire by releasing movies on DVD at the same time as cinemas is probably where the industry is heading," he told the New York Times.

DVDs and videos have become Hollywood's lifeblood. They earned US$55.6 billion ($80.5 billion), or about two-thirds of the industry's haul last year, with box office receipts making up most of the rest.

The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that bootleg DVDs deprived the film industry of more than US$3 billion ($4.3 billion) in sales last year, not including lost sales from pirated works peddled online.

- NZPA