When Spectre, the 24th film in the James Bond series, is released next month, staff at cinemas aim to stop pirates — who often use pinhole cameras hidden in things like hats, popcorn buckets, or backpacks — from pirating their own copy of the film for distribution. Piracy is a multi-million dollar industry in the UK, where numerous Internet personalities fight to be the first to get a new film online.
Night vision goggles are nothing new to UK cinema, according to Kieron Sharp, director of the Federation Against Copyright Theft, but they will be used more readily as part of the added security measures being put in place for Spectre.
“They still do the sweeps around the auditoriums with the night vision glasses regardless of the film,” he tells the Telegraph, “But sometimes extra security is put in place for things like Bond.”
Given the anticipated popularity of the latest Daniel Craig-starring project—for which Spectre is likely to be his last onscreen effort as the man in the black tuxedo—it makes sense that industry members are afraid of piracy issues.
They do, in fact, catch people pirating films this way. Last year, Phillip Danks went to prison for a little less than three years for filming The Fast and the Furious 6 and distributing it online.
That said, a poorly-filmed version of Spectre will probably make its way to the Internet almost immediately regardless of what they do, just like it does for almost every other blockbuster that hits the silver screen.
But hey, maybe you’ll get to see a popcorn-slinger wearing some Rainbow Six headgear, which is, you know, pretty darn cool either way.
