Macrovision Signs DVD Copy Protection Agreement With World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc.

Macrovision Corporation (NASDAQ:MVSN) has announced that World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. has signed an agreement to copy protect 100 percent of its WWF Home Video DVD titles. ""Our DVD copy protection agreement with Macrovision is an important element of our long-term plan to provide a broad range of DVD titles for the consumer sports entertainment market,"" said Robert Mayo, Director of Home Video at World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. ""It is very important that we protect the World Wrestling Federation brand and the investments of our major retailers and network of licensees who sell the WWF brand products worldwide."" Macrovision's DVD copy protection is designed to prevent unauthorized copying of DVD programming to VCRs without impacting the original picture. It is now used on most DVDs being released and is the only technology of its kind that is currently available to protect against unauthorized copying from DVDs to VCRs. ""We are pleased that World Wrestling Federation Entertainment has taken this important step in copy protecting its DVD releases,"" said Richard Matuszak, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Macrovision. ""With over 550 million VCRs worldwide, it is very easy for consumers to make high quality but unauthorized videocassette copies from the DVDs. We look forward to working with WWF in using DVD copy protection as an effective tool to safeguard its DVD revenues."" Macrovision is best known for the videocassette version of its copy protection technology, which is used by every Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) studio on some or all of their videocassette releases. Over 2.5 billion videocassettes have been copy protected. In the U.S., over 1,500 corporate, educational, and special interest rights owners apply the copy protection technology to their packaged media. DVD copy protection was introduced in 1997 and has been utilized on over 75 percent of all DVDs (i.e., over 70 million DVDs) produced to-date. Copyright (C) 1999 Business Wire. All rights reserved