Industry fights movie piracy

net1

NDS, 78% owned by News Corp, says it can help solve the movie piracy problem, widely believed to be costing the industry $3.5bn a year, with a new encryption system, "secure video processor" (SVP).

DirecTV of the US and British Sky Broadcasting are reported to be considering using the technology. NDS is a specialist developer of conditional access systems for pay-TV.

Abe Peled, NDS chief executive, said: "We are really staring into the abyss as an industry if we cannot establish a framework within which content distribution is secure."

Peled added that the system would also prevent pay-TV content being downloaded illegally and copied on to pirated DVDs.

SVP has been developed jointly by NDS, along with STMicroelectronics, the Franco-Italian semi-conductor company, and Thomson Multi-Media, the world's largest producer of set-top boxes.

Its creators hope it will become the industry standard for conditional access and have announced formation of the SVP Alliance, inviting other media and technology partners to join them to combat the piracy that threatens the industry.