DID OSCAR VOTERS SELL TITANIC VIDEOS TO PIRATES?
Video tapes of Titanic, sent out to voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prior to this year’s Oscar presentations, were used as masters for bootleg prints of the movie now circulating on the black market, the anti-piracy unit of the MPAA said Wednesday. The Association indicated that the film has become the pirates’ top seller. NEWARK, N.J. — “Titanic” is already out on video — on the black market. After smashing box office records worldwide, the ocean liner disaster flick is fast becoming one of the most popular pirated video on the streets of several East Coast cities. The Motion Picture Association of America’s video piracy unit has seized 1,500 illegal “Titanic” videos from street vendors in New York City since January. Dozens more have been confiscated in Newark, Philadelphia, Chicago and Cleveland. The two-tape video, selling for $10, comes in a professional-looking sleeve bearing photographs from the film, said Bill Shannon, who heads the associati
