Over 200,000 pirated copies of 'Casino Royal' already downloaded

Washington, Nov 22 : It hasn't even been in theatres for a week, but bootleg copies of new James Bond flick 'Casino Royale' have already hit the internet � all thanks to the super agent's Cold War nemesis, the Russians.

According to Envisional, an online company that monitors Internet piracy, a poor-quality copy of the movie, apparently captured with a camcorder in a Russian theater, first popped up on Internet file-sharing sites on Friday (Nov 17) - the same day the action flick hit theatres worldwide, reports Contactmusic.

And though the sound and picture quality were said to be poor, movie were buffs were not thwarted and after a higher-quality, uploaded in Italy, became available on Saturday, downloading had already begun.

By Sunday, Envisional experts stated that 'Casino Royale' had been downloaded an estimated 200,000 times.

The news of the downloaded came just as the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America announced Monday that they are launching a joint campaign called Holiday Blitz aimed at fighting movie and music piracy.

The campaign will include heightened security at movie theatres to prevent camcording and a crackdown on bootleg production.

The trade organizations said on Monday (Nov 20) that thanks to the Holiday Blitz campaign, some 1.3 million illegal CDs and DVDs were confiscated in 2005.

"Casino Royale', starring British actor Daniel Craig as the first blonde 007, hit theatres worldwide on Nov 17.

The movie's reviews saw Craig, whose choice as Bond had been slammed by fans and critics, having the last laugh after first reviews of the flick had the very same critics raving about his performance.

www.newkerala.com - 2006-11-23 04:03:26