Warner Bros. launched an unprecedented campaign to keep pirated copies of its summer blockbuster "The Dark Knight" from making their way onto the worldwide Web before the film's official release a few
weeks ago. This was a considerable challenge, considering that the Batman movie's core audience of superhero geeks is same group of young men attracted to file-sharing communities.
Because
of this, Warner Bros. spent six months developing its anti-piracy strategy, locking down the film with a "chain of custody" that listed who had access to the film at any given moment as it moved from
production to post-production to the theater. Warner also varied its shipping and delivery methods, staggering delivery of film reels, so the whole movie wouldn't arrive at theaters in the same
shipment. This cut back on the possibility of the film being stolen or copied. It also conducted on-site spot checks in theaters to make sure no camcorders were recording illegally.
In the
end, Warner's efforts kept the first illegal copies of "The Dark Knight" off the Internet until 38 hours after its release. In turn, that kept bootlegged copies off the streets until a few days later,
helping catapult the film to its $158.4 million opening weekend.
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