(22 September 2005 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: With the menace of film piracy showing no sign of letting up six Hollywood srudios - Disney, Paramount, Fox, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner will finance a multimillion-dollar research laboratory. The aim will be to find new ways to foil movie pirates.

It is to be called Motion Picture Laboratories, or MovieLabs, and is scheduled to begin operation this year. Media reports indicate that MovieLabs will have a budget of more than $30 million for its first two years. The idea arose from Hollywood's contention that the consumer electronics and information technology industries are not investing heavily or quickly enough in piracy-fighting technology.

The venture will explore new technologies to detect illegal videotaping of films in theaters and evaluate new computer hardware and software that is being used by networks to distribute films.

MovieLabs will be looking at ways to jam camcorders, detect and block P2P transfers on campus and business networks.

It will build spyware for peer 2 peer networks and look at better ways to prevent home and personal digital networks from being tapped into by unauthourised users. The lab is modelled after CableLabs, which since 1988 has spearheaded pivotal innovations in the cable television industry - hastening the adoption of fiber optics, cable modems, telephony and digital video.