Macrovision Signs Long Term Contract With Disney/Buena Vista To Copy Protect Videocassettes And DVDs
Macrovision Corporation (NASDAQ: MVSN) and Buena Vista Home Entertainment announced today that they have signed a worldwide copy protection technology agreement through 2004. Buena Vista will continue to apply the Macrovision anticopy process to its videocassettes and DVDs during the next five years. This agreement means that Buena Vista titles, including Disney, Touchstone, Hollywood, Miramax, Dimension, ESPN, and ABC labels will continue to be protected against casual VCR copying. ""Our license with Macrovision represents Buena Vista's continued effort and strong commitment to protect both our products and our retail partners in this business from piracy and illegal copying,"" stated Mitch Koch, General Manager, Buena Vista Home Entertainment in North America. Adding to Mr. Koch's remarks, Greg Probert, Executive Vice President, Buena Vista Home Entertainment Worldwide, stated, ""Buena Vista has always believed in building assets through the ownership of Intellectual rights. Macrovision provides an important protection to insure the preservation of our home entertainment assets."" ""Retailers carrying Buena Vista titles will continue to profit from the deterrence of unauthorized casual copying,"" said Carol Flaherty, Vice President of Macrovision's Video Copy Protection group. ""Reduced copying leads to greater potential sales and profits for retailers who rent and sell copy protected videocassettes and DVDs."" Since its first commercial usage in 1985, over 2.5 billion videocassettes and over 95 million DVDs have been encoded with the Macrovision anticopy process worldwide. About Macrovision Macrovision Corporation develops and markets content copy protection and rights management technologies and products to prevent the illicit duplication, reception or use of video and audio programs and computer software. The company provides its products and services primarily to the home video, pay-per-view, cable, satellite, video security, consumer multimedia and application software markets. Macrovision has its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California with subsidiaries in London and Tokyo.